Ed Snider could be as prickly and combative as an NHL enforcer, so it's no coincidence that the Age of Gritty dawned when the Flyers' founder was terminally ill.
"Ed was an old-school guy," said Dave Raymond, the original Phillie Phanatic and a consultant during the process that led to Gritty's spectacularly successful September launch. "He didn't want this."
For Snider, who died in April 2016, there was no place for furry creatures in the man-to-man battles he and the team that mirrored his personality so regularly fought.
"I used to ride my four-wheeler over to the Spectrum for Sixers playoff games and one night I decided to go over for a Flyers game," Raymond, who stepped down as the Phanatic in 1993, recalled last week.