When Matt Kusko saw the new Philadelphia Flyers mascot, Gritty, he immediately felt the inspiration for a Halloween costume.

The Summit Hill resident probably had no idea that his costume would eventually get retweeted by some social media heavyweights like Barstool Sports, getting more than 100,000 likes.

“The Flyers haven’t had a mascot ever. This one showed up and kinda got busted on the internet for a while. Then all the sudden everybody started falling in love with him. So that’s when I decided I was definitely doing that for Halloween.”

After the mascot was announced last month, Kusko got to work on his Gritty costume. It helped that he had the orange beard and personality to pull it off.

A helmet, jersey and shorts came together easily. As a Flyers fan he was happy to buy a new team jersey.

But the costume really took off when he found a pair of fuzzy orange leg warmers during a search for an orange wig, which completed the Gritty look head to toe.

“I was just gonna wear orange sweatpants, and fuzzy leg warmers were exactly what I needed,” he said.

Kusko debuted the costume at a friend’s Halloween party two weeks ago. The response was universal — send it to Barstool.

The sometimes controversial blog which posts jokes about college and sports has over 5.6 million followers. They were a big part of making Gritty into the mythical internet character he became in his first few weeks of existence.

Friends got in on the cause, urging Barstool to repost the picture of Kusko. Last Monday, a message from a friend popped up in Kusko’s mentions. Barstool had posted a picture of him and Gritty on Instagram, side by side.

Their comment: “The most terrifying Halloween costume of the year.”

Kusko was understandably over the moon.

“A friend of mine tagged me within 20 minutes of it being posted on Barstool. It popped up in my notifications and I just went crazy,” Kusko said.

Since then, it’s only gotten better. Even though his account wasn’t tagged in the post, he has been thrilled watching the number of likes climb. A number of other accounts covering the NHL have posted it as well, and a beard oil company used it for marketing.

The comments have all been very receptive. A lot of them want to try to replicate Kusko’s costume this Halloween.

“I’m just watching the likes build up, the comments build up. When I get some spare time I’ll probably read through some of the newer comments,” he said.

Kusko says he eventually wants to bring his Gritty costume down to the Wells Fargo Center for a Flyers game. For now, he’s got a couple more Halloween parties.

“I think I’m gonna take it up a notch and show up on roller blades,” he said.

Naturally, Kusko is a huge Flyers fan, and considers himself to be one of Gritty’s biggest fans, too.

“Gritty has a lot of big fans. Being that I took the inner Gritty in myself and became him, I’m up at the top of the list I think,” he said.