Why is "Squirtle Saxophone" song now synonymous with Flyers wins? Assistant trainer Alex Ambrose gets the credit

It’s quickly become a staple of the Philadelphia Flyers’ postgame celebration in their locker room, played after every victory.

It’s now plastered all over social media by fans to honor Flyers wins.

Even Gritty joined in the fun last month.

That’s right — the Squirtle saxophone song.

But the earworm didn’t just appear randomly one day in Flyers world. Every signature song must have a backstory, especially one as random as a brief saxophone solo on loop with a sunglasses-wearing Pokémon taking up the role as woodwind virtuoso. So how exactly did a social media meme take hold within the Philadelphia locker room?

Enter assistant Flyers trainer Alex Ambrose.

“I am indeed the originator,” he confirmed to PHLY Sports this week.

The meme, which involves an animated Squirtle (wearing sunglasses) playing a saxophone and banging his head along to the music, gained traction in other forms in the past. The song dates back to 2010, when SunStroke Project submitted Run Away as their entry in the Eurovision contest, representing the country of Moldova. Especially-online individuals took the solo played by Sergey Stepanov — dubbing him “Epic Sax Guy” — and turned it into a clip, putting the solo on loop, sometimes for hours on end.

The meme had its moment, but like most internet trends, quickly faded into obscurity — until it was rediscovered on TikTok at the end of 2023, this time with Squirtle playing along instead.

Ambrose, who joined the Flyers as an assistant trainer this past summer after three years with the Charlotte Checkers of the AHL, was introduced to the clip the same way most have been: he came across it on social media and found it inexorably lodged in his brain.

“So we were in Seattle the morning of the (December 29) game doing treatments,” he recalled. “The night before, before I went to sleep, this song’s obviously been circulating through social media. It was just stuck in my head.”

Ambrose decided it was high time to share it with his captive audience: the Flyers players receiving treatments.

“About five (or) ten minutes into treatments, I said, ‘Hey guys, sorry, I have to get something off my head, so I’m gonna play this. Now it’s gonna be stuck with you,'” Ambrose said.

Did they hate it? Did they find it annoying or insufferable?

Of course not. Scott Laughton, master of the locker room aux cord and noted saxophone appreciator, loved it.

“Threw it on, and Laughts was sitting on the wall and goes, “Oh man, I love a good saxophone song,'” Ambrose remembered.

But the song’s place with the team wasn’t cemented, Ambrose noted, until later that night, against the Kraken in Seattle.

“I don’t remember if it was a TV timeout, or just right before a draw, but the song comes on with Squirtle on the jumbotron, and I look down the bench, (head trainer) Tommy (Alva) looks down at me, a couple of the guys – I think it was (Joel) Farabee, Laughton and (Nicolas) Deslauriers, they all look back and start smiling,” Ambrose said.

“Oh, everyone on the bench was looking at Alex,” Farabee confirmed.

After that, the song had crossed over into inside joke status within the team. By mid-January, reporters heard it blasting out of the locker room after a big win over the Stars. And it’s stuck ever since — largely because of the connection to Ambrose.

“Ever since then, the song would come on, the guys would look down at the bench (at) me,” he said. “(Then) they started playing it in the locker room. (So) I’d come in, start dancing a little bit.”

And thus, a victory song was born.

“The Squirtle song, yeah, that one’s been a staple this year. That one actually gets me hyped up,” Farabee stated with legitimate sincerity.

But it’s not the only Flyers victory song, to be clear. The group changes up the post-game songlist frequently, but another recent staple has been Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, usually played in the room post-Squirtle sax.

Laughton pinned the Dreams choice on Farabee, and theorized it was inspired by the Ocean Spray TikTok meme from 2020, of a man riding down a highway chugging from a bottle of Ocean Spray while singing along to the song.

Not so, Farabee says.

“We were listening to it in all-star break,” he explained, referencing the tropical vacation that he and many of his teammates took together during the bye week. “We probably played that song 150 times. Just a really good vibe song.”

In other words, music selection in the Flyers’ room — especially when it comes to important choices, like post-win tracks — appears to be driven in large part by a full-fledged commitment to running jokes.

“Someone will play a song, and something’ll happen. We’ll be going for a few minutes or whatever, and it’ll just stick. That’s kinda how it’s gone,” Farabee said.

Even the Wells Fargo Center arena staff is starting to get in on the fun of the bits. Apparently inspired by Travis Konecny’s post-practice train escapades in Minnesota from mid-January, the arena has started playing train-related music when the Flyers come out of the tunnel to start a new period at home. Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne, for example, announced the group’s return to the ice to start the third period on Monday against the Blues.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, (but) each time we come out to start a period, it’s some sort of train song,” Travis Sanheim revealed. “I don’t know, maybe the PR guys set it up. Pretty cool idea.”

All the music curation is done with one common goal: keeping things fun for a very tight group.

“Like mid-game, it’ll be tie game and we’ll hear the (Squirtle) song, and everyone will be like, ‘Ahhh, what’s going on?’” Farabee said. “You gotta keep it light, and obviously stuff like that brings people together too.”

They even keep some secrets in-house — according to Laughton, there’s another “true” win song that comes on before the Squirtle sax, that they’ve been able to keep under wraps thus far, due to the fact that the media doesn’t make it down to ice level in time to hear it. Some songs, apparently, are not for public consumption.

But when it comes to the Squirtle sax song, it’s Ambrose who deserves the bulk of the credit.

“I love it. I love that I’m kind of a part of it too,” Ambrose said. “I didn’t think I’d be mentioned in it. But it’s been fun.”