NHL playoff hockey returns to Philly, and Gritty is loving it

NHL playoff hockey returns to Philly, and Gritty is loving it

All eyes are on Philadelphia hockey this post-season as they need one more playoff win against Pittsburgh to advance to the second round, but something rather large and orange (and slightly unhinged) may be holding viewers' attention even more.

Ah yes, Gritty. What are the Flyers without the crazy-eyed mascot that is always getting up to some shenanigans — like tossing a plush version of his opponents' mascot down the stadium stairs mid-game.

Curious about Gritty, his origins and whether he's made a playoff appearance before? Well, keep reading.

When was Gritty introduced?

Gritty was first introduced in 2018 and has been turning heads ever since.

In an October 2018 City Council resolution, Gritty was officially made the new mascot of the Flyers.

"Gritty may be a hideous monster, but he is our hideous monster," the resolution stated.

As far as Gritty's looks and overall vibes are concerned, he was also described as "a 7-foot tall orange hellion, a fuzzy eldritch horror, a ghastly empty-eyed Muppet with a Delco beard, a cross of Snuffleupagus and Oscar the Grouch, a deranged orange lunatic, an acid trip of a mascot, a shaggy orange Wookiee-esque grotesquerie, a non-binary leftist icon, an orange menace, a raging id, and an antihero," by the council's resolution, as well as, "huggable but also potentially insurrectionary, ridiculous, horrifying, unsettling, and absurd."

Last time Flyers were in the playoffs. Is this Gritty's first playoffs?

While this isn't technically Gritty's first appearance in the playoffs, the last time the Flyers made it to the post season was in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in what the NHL called "the bubble," so the Stanley Cup tournament looked much different than the fan-packed stadiums we are seeing now.