The NHL season has begun, and the Philadelphia Flyers mascot’s debut has come and gone. However, Philadelphia just isn’t ready to let Gritty-mania go, as evidenced by the Philadelphia City Council passing a resolution honoring this utter monster. Councilmember At Large Helen Gym penned the resolution, and even though it doesn’t look like it does anything in an official capacity, it’s a good bit of work to remind Philadelphians why they fell in love with this … Thing.

Here’s the entire resolution. It’s worth the read.

Gym begins by discussing the various descriptions we’ve seen of Gritty, including: “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.”

For the record, “a raging id” is one of the best descriptions of Gritty out there.

She adds that Gritty is already indelibly part of Philadelphia lore, and he’s already been honored in an unofficial capacity “by putting his inimitable face on protest signs, tip jars, wedding cakes, and tattoos” (if you Google Gritty tattoos, you’re gonna see some stuff, and it’s not all as innocuous as the face of chaos. You have been warned).

Gym also goes into some of the arguments that prove Gritty is living rent-free in intellectuals’ heads, saying: “It has been argued that he ‘conveys the absurdity and struggle of modern life under capitalism … .'”

In any case, she concludes by saying: 

“WHEREAS, Gritty may be a hideous monster, but he is our hideous monster; now, therefore, be it RESOLVED, That the Council of the City of Philadelphia welcomes Gritty, the new mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers, and honors the spirit and passion that Gritty has brought to the City of Philadelphia and to the entire country, both on and off the ice.”

You can see the vote here, with one councilmember opposing on the ground that “he ugly.”

Honestly, this resolution was never going to be struck down. Not with Gym’s pitch.

Congratulations, Philadelphia.

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