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It’s Gritty’s Birthday – Here’s a List of Interesting Gritty Facts to Celebrate

Matt Schultz

By Matt Schultz

Published:

Feb 22, 2025; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty entertains fans during the game against the Edmonton Oilers at Wells Fargo Center.
Kyle Ross-Imagn Images

The Flyers introduced Gritty on this day, September 24th, back in 2018. That was eight years ago. Eight years of Gritty. That’s a pretty long time, but it somehow feels even longer. It’s hard to remember a time before Gritty was doing this sort of stuff:

And this:

Did you know that despite being pretty new, Gritty has the most social media followers of any NHL mascot? I just found that out while Googling stuff to talk about for this blog. Found out some other cool stuff too. Here’s a list of it:

Some Cool Gritty Tidbits I Just Found Online

  • The Flyers didn’t have a mascot for more than 40 years. The marketing department finally decided to create one after seeing all the local team mascots celebrating together at the Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl victory parade in 2018, realizing they were missing out on a ton of engagement by not having one.
  • Designer Brian Allen of Flyland Designs sketched roughly 125 different concepts — including squirrels, bats, and deer — before the team settled on the current Gritty.
  • David Raymond, the first man to portray the Phillie Phanatic, helped with the design.
  • An early iteration of Gritty had angel wings. This could’ve worked. I could see this.
  • Former Flyers forward and executive Paul Holmgren named him.
  • According to Flyers lore (also on the Gritty Wikipedia), Gritty was forced out of hiding after recent construction at the Wells Fargo Center disturbed the underground bunker he was nesting in.
  • Before Gritty, the Flyers had one other mascot for one season in 1976. His name was Slapshot:
via r/Flyers on Reddit
  • Gritty did this Kim Kardashian parody photo within 24 hours of his launch. Feels incredibly dated now, but this was a big deal at the time:
  • He went on Jimmy Fallon a couple days after the Flyers rolled him out in 2018, but I can’t find the video of this anywhere. Seems like they deleted it for some reason. Here’s a story about it if you’re interested, and here’s a very nice photo from the evening:
  • I also found this story:

That’s all the Gritty info I have for now. I think that’s a solid list. Happy birthday, Gritty.

Matt Schultz
Matt Schultz

Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com