Slapshot, the Flyers' first mascot, didn't last long. But the memories endure for Gritty's ‘grandfather.'

PHILADELPHIA - Dennis Boyle walked the concourse of the sold-out Spectrum, unable to see much of anything thanks to the oversized mascot head he wore. It was his second day as Slapshot, the orange mascot introduced by the Philadelphia Flyers in November of 1978.

Day No. 1 was a hit: Slapshot skated between periods, showed some fancy moves, slapped a puck in the net, and listened to the crowd roar. Navigating the arena a day later presented a different challenge.

"Doesn't a guy come up to me, a typical Philly fan, and [sucker punches] me right in the gut," Boyle said. "Man, I don't know if you've ever been suckered in the gut. But you think you're going to die."

Slapshot's security guard apologized, telling Boyle that he should've seen the 20-something-year-old coming. It's OK, Boyle said as he tried to catch his breath.

"Then I thought, ‘Hey, that's a badge of honor. I'm not worried about it,'" Boyle said.

The Flyers were two years removed from winning back-to-back Stanley Cups and were in the midst of a sell-out streak that spanned eight seasons as they filled the Spectrum every night with 17,077 crazies.

They didn't needa mascot and owner Ed Snider sure didn't wanta mascot. But the Phillie Phanatic arrived earlier that year from the Galápagos Islands and took Philadelphia by storm as mascots became prevalent across pro sports in the late 1970s.

Lou Scheinfeld, Snider's business partner, suggested that maybe the Flyers could create their own Phanatic.

So long before Gritty, the Flyers introduced Slapshot. It was big and orange with a pair of goggles and wore a hat with flaps.

"To this day, I don't know if it's a dog or what," said Scheinfeld, who named the Spectrum and worked closely with Snider for years. "I just laugh when I see it because I don't know what the heck it is."

Boyle was a 26-year-old mail carrier in Delaware County who played beer-league hockey and had season tickets in the Spectrum's third deck for $7.50 a game before becoming the mascot.

He sprinted through his mail route, drove to the Spectrum, and wore the two-piece Slapshot costume - "It stunk to the high heavens," Boyle said - for $25 a night. After just one season, it was over. Gritty went viral after debuting in 2018 but Slapshot became an answer to a trivia question.

"People were saying ‘You're the father of Gritty,'" said Boyle, who is now 73 and lives in Cherry Hill. "I go ‘More like the grandfather.'"

Becoming Slapshot

Boyle's girlfriend worked at the Spectrum and recommended him for the job when she heard the Flyers were in the market for a mascot. He knew how to skate, loved the Flyers, and had a background in theater. He went to a tryout.

"I showed up and not another soul could even stand up on skates," Boyle said.

Boyle grew up in Glenolden, Pa., and graduated in 1970 from Monsignor Bonner. Hockey, Boyle said, was a "foreign sport" then as the Flyers were just starting. Everything changed when they won the Cup. Boyle, like the rest of the region, was hooked.

He bought season tickets and his father Jim was a bartender at the Blue Line, the Spectrum club where the players went after games before they headed to Rexy's in South Jersey.

"Remember [sportscaster] Al Meltzer?," Boyle said. "He was in there one night and he was wearing these loud plaid pants. He predicted the Bruins and my brother-in-law was giving him the business. My father is saying to me on the side, ‘Get him out of here.' We had such a good time."

The Flyers had Boyle train with an Ice Capade who fine-tuned the beer leaguer. Slapshot debuted in an afternoon game with a power-skating routine set to the theme from "Rocky."

"Unlike most games, when people go out to get their food and whatnot, everyone stayed," Boyle said. "It was mostly kids because it was Black Friday. Everybody went bananas."

Slapshot went to a Firebirds game and "fought" their mascot, was interviewed by local TV news, and had his own 8x10 to sign. It was fun. Slapshot's biggest challenge - besides getting sucker punched - was not blocking the view.

"Somebody would be yelling at me, ‘Get out of my way,'" Boyle said. "The Phanatic can be out in left field somewhere and people don't care. But hockey is different. ‘Get the F out of my way.'"

The Flyers told Boyle late in the season that they were retiring Slapshot. Jay Greenberg, the Hall of Fame writer who covered the Flyers for the Daily News, wrote in 1978, that the reaction was "not overwhelmingly favorable but this is a town that once booed Santa."

"The kids, at least, weren't complaining," Greenberg wrote.

Snider didn't want a mascot and Slapshot wasn't catching on. The Flyers already had "The Hammer," "The Hound" and "Big Bird." The Broad Street Bullies were the draw. The Flyers didn't need Slapshot.

"It was a poor costume," Scheinfeld said. "And I know Dennis tried his best and he did a good job, but the fans weren't crazy about it. Back then, all Flyers fans wanted was hockey. The Flyers played a great brand of hockey and the fans really didn't want mascots. Maybe we should've named it Hapless. That probably would've been a hit."

Gritty before Gritty

The Flyers went without a mascot for 40 years before Gritty arrived. Initial reactions to the googly-eyed creature were almost as rough as a sucker punch to the stomach.

"I'll be honest with you, when I first saw Gritty, I said, ‘This is horrible. This is awful,'" Scheinfeld said. "I couldn't have been more wrong. I love Gritty. The way they handle him with the Secret Service guys. It's a winner. Much better than our Slapshot."

Gritty overcame his debut, quickly became a sensation, and still regularly goes viral eight years later. The mascot talks smack on social media, tosses cake in the face of rival fans, and twice threw stuffed penguins off the second deck of the arena during the Flyers' recent first-round series against Pittsburgh.

The Flyers were mascotless for so long yet now it's hard to imagine them not having one.

"That guy has [guts]," Boyle said. "Did you see him repel from the ceiling?"

Maybe the Flyers, Scheinfeld said, were ahead of their time with Slapshot. Perhaps Slapshot could have been Gritty before Gritty.

The Flyers did a lot of the right things in the 1970s as they made a foreign sport feel homegrown, sold out the Spectrum, won two Cups, and even started their own cable TV network. But they whiffed on the mascot.

"It wasn't exactly Gritty or the Phanatic," Scheinfeld said. "It was a sad uniform. It was floppy. I understand it smelled bad and people said they didn't want it near them."

Boyle was walking a few years ago on Kings Highway when he saw Bobby Clarke. He stopped Clarke and asked if he remembered when the Flyers had a mascot. Sure, Clarke said. Boyle told him he was Slapshot. And then told him about that time the fan took his breath away.

"He got a big laugh out of that," Boyle said. "He said, ‘Jeez, that sounds like a Philly welcome.' But I really had a great time. I just ate it up. I loved it, and I'll always have the memories."

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This story was originally published May 3, 2026 at 5:33 AM.