“The Adirondack Flames organization contacted our department and asked us to provide a firefighter for the event,” the department said.

“We denied that request, but in the spirit of cooperation and support for the team, we provided them with a set of firefighting gear.”

The mascot did not appear at the Flames’ home opener at the Glens Falls Civic Center on Saturday, and will not appear ever.

Petrovek said the management is designing a new mascot that will be associated with fun, not fear.

“They (mascots) should be 100 percent fun,” he said. “That’s what our intention has always been, and that’s what it will be moving forward.”

A sports mascot’s job is to increase revenue for the team, by drawing more fans to the game and putting them in a good mood so they spend more at concession stands, said David Raymond, the Phillies Phanatic mascot for 17 seasons for the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team, in a 2010 interview with The Post-Star.

Some professional sports team mascots make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, he said.