Gritty



Gritty is the official mascot for the Philadelphia Flyers National Hockey League (NHL) team. He is a 7 ft furry orange creature with googly eyes who wears Flyers gear. Gritty has been compared to the Phillie Phanatic, the mascot for the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team. He was created by Brian Allen of Flyland Designs with help from David Raymond, the first man to portray the Phillie Phanatic. Gritty was introduced on September 24, 2018. According to his official biography, Gritty emerged after construction at the Wells Fargo Center, the Flyers' home arena, disturbed his secret hideout. Within the months following his debut, he became an internet sensation and made appearances on several talk shows.

Creation
Prior to the 2018–19 NHL season, the only two National Hockey League teams without an official mascot were the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Rangers. The Flyers' previous mascot, Slapshot, lasted only for the 1976–77 season. In 1995, the Washington Capitals introduced their own Slapshot, named by fifth-grade student Stephanie Williams in a contest.

The impetus behind Gritty's creation started when the Flyers' marketing department attended the mascot events at the 2016 NHL All-Star Game in Nashville, Tennessee, and realized that they were missing out on all the marketing and community outreach programs that the league's mascots were generating for their respective teams. The Flyers then commissioned Brian Allen of Flyland Designs in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, to design Gritty in August 2018. David Raymond, who portrayed the Phillie Phanatic, consulted on Gritty's creation. The Flyers organization wanted Gritty to have a rather intimidating appearance, as "someone you'd high-five but not hug" according to Allen.

Career
Gritty made his debut on September 24, 2018, and appeared on the The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon several days later. Gritty was active on social media from his debut: his odd appearance and stunts on Twitter, such as seeming to threaten the mascot of the Pittsburgh Penguins and recreating Kim Kardashian's "Break the Internet" photograph, contributed to his rise in infamy. Within days, Gritty's Twitter account had more followers than any other NHL mascot. In his first on-ice appearance, Gritty fell while firing T-shirts into the crowd from a T-shirt cannon. In his second appearance on ice, Gritty body-checked contestants in a goalie race during an intermission and shot a Flyers staff member with a T-shirt cannon.

On October 13, 2019, the first ever “Gritty anti-runners 5K” took place. This 5K race included Gritty's favorite things along the track, including hot dogs, silly string, and a shrine to Claude Giroux.

In November 2019, during a fan meet-and-greet between Gritty and Flyers season ticket holders, a fan reported that the Flyers employee portraying Gritty punched their 13 year old son in the back. After an internal investigation by the Flyers led to no other witnesses of such abuse, the fan reported the incident to the Philadelphia Police Department, which has led to its own investigation. On February 3, 2020, the Flyers employee portraying Gritty was officially cleared of any wrongdoing and charges were declined to be filed following an investigation conducted by the South Detectives Division of the Philadelphia Police Department.

Gritty introduced the Philadelphia Fusion during 2019 and 2020 home-stand matches.

In May 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Pennsylvania, Gritty began wearing a face shield. In September, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health released a promotional video featuring Gritty to encourage wearing face masks in public, and in December the department and the NHL cleared Gritty to resume public appearances at Flyers games.

Reception
Many sources brought attention to his appearance, which could be construed as frightening, while The Guardian described him as an "acid trip of a mascot." Response to Gritty's introduction was immediate and sharply mixed, with many fans on social media expressing bewilderment and some fright at his appearance. Public perception of Gritty became increasingly positive as Gritty's antics, which subverted the cuddly, family-friendly appearance and demeanor of other NHL mascots, gained more attention on social media. Gritty was lampooned on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Saturday Night Live.

Philadelphia residents embraced Gritty shortly after his debut as representing the city's rough and tumble character. The city council passed a formal resolution honoring Gritty in October, declaring that he honored the city's spirit and passion. Within two months, the mascot amassed almost 200,000 Twitter followers. Gritty was the top league mascot in a 2019 vote of the NHL Players' Association.