Philadelphia Flyers: Gritty’s approved return is a Christmas miracle

Gritty is about to wreak havoc on the Philadelphia Flyers’ home games.

Roughly one week ago, Kevin Hayes threw down his gloves to fight for Gritty’s rights to appear at Philadelphia Flyers games in 2021.

Playfully threatening to boycott the forthcoming 2020-21 season if Gritty wasn’t allowed to attend games at the Wells Fargo Center come January, Hayes’ campaign was followed up in short order by a Change.org petition to convince NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to reclassify the mascot as an ‘essential employee.’

And, in a true Christmas miracle, the prayers of Hayes, Gritty, and the entire City of Brotherly Love have been answered.

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That’s right, according to our friends over at NBC 10 Philadelphia, the NHL officially announced their arena protocols for the 2020-21 campaign, and under Group 4, mascots have officially been given the go to appear at games in a limited capacity.

That means Gritty, the NJ Devil, everyone’s favorite digital meet and greeter S.J. Sharkie (more on that here), and the rest of the NHL’s mascots are free to continue on with their mischievous, enigmatic, fan fascinating brand of engagement is good to go in what’s shaping up to be one of the stranger seasons in NHL history.

If that isn’t essential, I don’t know what is.

As the leader of a one-man Gritty army that rapidly evolved into dozens of think pieces (hey), thousands of tweets, and well over 13,000 digital signatures on the aforementioned Change.org petition, Hayes took to Twitter himself and posted a picture of himself and the Orange Meanie with the simple text “we did it @Gritty.”

For what it’s worth, Wonder Woman Gritty is probably my favorite of his costumes, even more so than his Santa Claus look.

With Gritty now back in the saddle, ready to rumble, and whichever other similar adages you’d like to dish out, the NHL has no idea what they just allowed to happen. Gritty is not only back, but rest assured, he’ll remember his near-exclusion from the 2020-21 season and act accordingly.

No one is safe from Gritty’s wrath in 2021; not opposing goalies, not social media users, and definitely not his most hated rival, the Pittsburgh Penguin Bird.

Buckle up, hockey fans; this is going to be a whole lot of fun.

So there you go; crisis everted. While fans of the Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and every other NHL team won’t be allowed to attend games this fall, it’s at least comforting to know that Gritty and his 29 other friends – 30 if you count the Penguin – will be allowed to attend games and entertain fans between the action for 56 games next year. Thanks for fighting the good fight, Kevin.