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The “Fire Tocchet, Save Michkov” Billboard is Live in South Philly
By Matt Schultz
Published:
Tony Escargot has done it:
After starting a GoFundMe last week to raise money for a flyover above Xfinity Mobile Arena reading “FIRE TOCCHET,” Tony crowdfunded so much that he ended up going with a billboard, too. It went live on Thursday morning, and will cycle through a series of other ads every eight seconds. That’s pretty good. In a way, the ad-cycling situation is better. I like the idea of a very regular, mundane I-95 billboard for some brother lawyers or Foreman Mills suddenly changing into a stark, urgent, ominous-looking command: FIRE TOCCHET, SAVE MICHKOV. Adds a fun element of surprise:
For those who’d like a little more context for what Tony’s doing here, he made his mission statement clear on the GoFundMe page:
Daniel Briere, Keith Jones, and Comcast have decimated the Philadelphia Flyers by hiring Rick Tocchet as head coach.
The front office thinks the “Fire Tocchet” crowd is purely online but Tony would like to prove otherwise.
This fundraiser is to raise funds for flying a plane over Xfinity Mobile Arena during the Flyers 11/27 Black Friday game carrying a banner that reads “FIRE TOCCHET”.
We’re also updating the goal to $4,000 to get a billboard up on or around i95 close, to XfinitiyMobile arena around the same time.
If Tocchet is fired before 11/27, funds will either be refunded or used toward another Flyers related cause. Tony will make a poll.
If Tocchet ISN’T fired before 11/27, any funds over the $4K goal will be donated to Snider Hockey & CHOP.
God Bless.
Due to recent events, we will be reverting back to the original plan. The Billboard/Banners will say “FIRE TOCCHET. SAVE MICHKOV”.
As of this writing, Tony has raised $6,605 for the billboard and flyover, and says he’ll be donating the excess funds to the charity. That’s nice stuff. It’s also nice thinking about the Flyers front office seeing this billboard. Very heartening to know the fanbase is out here trying to get some changes made. Who knows, maybe it’ll work. It could happen. We haven’t even gotten to the flyover yet, which sounds like it’s on for this Sunday. A billboard alone is pretty convincing; a billboard plus a message on an airplane is convincing as hell:
This tweet made me laugh, too. Well done, Tony:
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