Get Some Dirt on Your Face
March 31, 2009
It just feels right. Like having snow on Christmas Day or eating turkey on Thanksgiving and that is growing facial hair during the hockey postseason. Where the tradition exactly started is fuzzy but needless to say it has its roots in superstition and gained heavy national fame during the 2004 Stanley Cup playoffs when Anaheim goaltender Jean-Sebastian Giguere looked like a possum had died on his face by the conclusion of Game 7.
The playoffs for the Outlaws are now upon us and the questions is, are you growing facial hair for the playoffs? The topic is almost mute below the Junior A level as most players haven’t seen a whisker on their face let alone picked up a razor and shaving cream. In those instances, teams tend to do other hair related activites such as a team-wide hair style which is actually what the Outlaws have gone with. What that style is hard to judge though a few players seemed to have made an ill-advised attempt at doing a mohawk, but not as bad.
Either way, at the Junior A level there are players who can definately go Grizzley Adams style (though not as many 20 years ago and that was covered in a previous post) so for them the question comes up at this time whether to grow some sort of facial hair. A mustauche, goatee or even the full beard. From there, to what length will they go. Do they go full out, letting it grow untouched for the duration of the playoffs, or do they trim it like a putting green?
Then the question drifts to us in the stands and do we grow facial hair to go along with the players? I for one have always sported a goatee come playoff time a tradition that actually began for me in college as a good luck ritual before finals (and I got straight A’s so it worked).
So as the playoffs begins, who is forgoing the shaving and letting the whiskers of playoff fortune take over their face?
