Owen and the Nanook (bear for the nonalaskan)

Funny story from the weekend, apparently he is afraid a characters, men in bear costume kind of characters. We have went to college hockey games since he was a week old. We are season ticket holders, so we always sit with the same people and they know our kids well. The inlaws sit at the other end of our row. This weekend was the first games of the season. We were excited to see how they would react to the opening of the game. They have this huge inflated bear that the players skate under to come onto the ice. The lights are dimmed and there is loud music. We missed it the first night, took too long drinking beer downstairs. But Owen was petrified of the "man" bears and was hiding his face and screaming crying. He finally warmed up by the end of the third period, in time to leave. He always knew where all three of the man bears were, he was keeping a close eye on them.
Saturday night, I made sure to be upstairs in time. He pulled a horse move on me, once he saw the inflated bear he put his gears in reverse and was backing up into the crowd to get away. I bring him down to our front row seat, all the way on the other side of the arena from inflata-bear. His is freaking out. Climbs over my shoulder, into the lap of the ladies behind me. Hides in their shoulder for a minute and decides that is still too close. Climbs over them into the lap of the goalies mom and hides there. By that time I am in the last row ready to catch his freakout self when he bails from her. We went and hid in the bathroom till the opening was done. He finally warmed up to the man bears walking around by halfway through the third period. Warmed up to them in the sense that they could walk around 10 feet below our section, no where near touching range. Never expected this reaction.