Phlex. Dax. Melvin. First you take away the purple, now you take away the X from our mascots names? What treacherous endeavors will you thrust upon fans next, Lehigh Valley?
Kidding. Kind of.
In Philadelphia, the Phantoms had Phlex. From 1995-2009, Phlex was leading the crowd at the Spectrum. Unfortunately, Phlex was retired when the organization moved to Adirondack, where Dax was introduced.
Dax was, well, big. And orange. Big and orange. Cross eyed too. And just…yikes.
And after moving from Adirondack and becoming the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, the organization unveiled a new mascot named Melvin. The team used a YouTube video to make the announcement. It’s kind of corny, but pretty cool.
Melvin has strikingly similar qualities as predecessor Dax. Although Melvin doesn’t look as much of a goofball as Dax.
You can see the new owners stamping their mark on their team. Melvin is mostly orange, with shades of black and blue in the hair and the tail.
Personally, I was hoping with the move, they would bring back Phlex. Phlex was tough, intimidating (seriously, as a kid I had a birthday party at a Phantoms game one time and I didn’t want to see him because he was scary), and is actually a phantom. And not the Phantoms of the Opera either.
Anyway, I’m okay with Melvin. He’s off to a good start already. As the video states, he hates the Hershey Bears (by the way, best part about the Phantoms moving back? Renewed rivalry with Hershey. But we’ll get to that at another time…) And he really does not like Penguins.
Looks like he’ll feel right at home in the Lehigh Valley…
(By the way, if you missed the first two parts of the Phantoms three part unveiling series, parts 1 and 2 are below)
Here is Part 1
And now, Part 2