--- title: Gritty Made a Very Relatable Debut By Falling on the Ice description: In the first public outing of the controversial new Philadelphia Flyers team mascot, Gritty had an issue with the ice. canonical: https://time.com/5405739/gritty-debut-fall/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-09-25T15:26:23.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:55:04.318Z og:title: Gritty Made a Very Relatable Debut By Falling on the Ice og:description: The controversial new Philadelphia Flyers mascot had a less than smooth start og:url: https://time.com/5405739/gritty-debut-fall/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Gritty Made a Very Relatable Debut By Falling on the Ice twitter:description: The controversial new Philadelphia Flyers mascot had a less than smooth start twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Gritty Made a Very Relatable Debut By Taking a Tumble on the Ice > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Sep 25, 2018 3:26 PM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Sep 25, 2018 3:26 PM UTC It was a tough start for Gritty, the [viral new mascot](http://time.com/5405221/gritty-mascot/) for the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team, who made his game debut on Monday — and promptly slipped and fell on the ice. Legs flailing, orange fur bright against the white ice, Gritty makes quite a picture of a floundering mascot. Luckily he was decked out in his helmet to keep his head protected during the fall — and we can guess that his voluminous mascot costume at least provides for plenty of padding, a nice layer of protection against the cold, hard ice. But it’s not a particularly auspicious starting point for a character who has already raised eyebrows with his googly eyes and distinctive posture. And unfortunately the Flyers also had a rough day of it, [falling 4 to 3](https://www.google.com/search?q=flyers+bruins&oq=flyers+bruins&aqs=chrome..69i57.1335j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#sie=m;/g/11gl2whfcl;7;/m/05gwr;dt;fp;1) in a preseason game against the Boston Bruins. (Their mascot, meanwhile, is the rather more dignified [Blades](https://shop.nhl.com/boston-bruins/mascot/t-14150563+c-46455446+z-919-3828261897), a fierce ice-skating brown bear.) Better luck next time to both Gritty and his teammates as they take on the New York Rangers [on Thursday](https://www.google.com/search?q=flyers+bruins&oq=flyers+bruins&aqs=chrome..69i57.1335j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#sie=t;/m/0hn2q;7;/m/05gwr;mt;fp;1) in another preseason matchup. The Rangers [don’t have a mascot](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/sports/hockey/a-mascot-with-a-fuzzy-future.html), so at least Gritty won’t have much competition on that side of things. > [](https://twitter.com/SInow/status/1044378269016104965) > [](https://twitter.com/GrittyNHL/status/1044383577666998272) > [](https://twitter.com/PhilaBCoulter/status/1044372506025644032) > [](https://twitter.com/BroadStHockey/status/1044393798216937473) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5405739/gritty-debut-fall/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5405739/gritty-debut-fall/"},"headline":"Gritty Made a Very Relatable Debut By Taking a Tumble on the Ice","datePublished":"2018-09-25T15:26:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:55:04.318Z","description":"Sorry, Gritty","url":"https://time.com/5405739/gritty-debut-fall/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral","Sports"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5405739/gritty-debut-fall/","name":"Gritty Made a Very Relatable Debut By Taking a Tumble on the Ice"}}]}] ```