One fan's plea to the NHL: bring back the playoff beard!
Column originally published in Fort McMurray Today April 20, 2006 Today.
By DAN MACEACHERN
Today staff
The playoffs are about to start. How come I've yet to see a single one of those stupid Calgary Flames car flags that seemed to have spread to hundreds of cars two years ago like some kind of vehicular rash? Did you bandwagon fans throw them out when the Flames lost to the Lightning? Since the Oilers and the Flames have both made the playoffs for the first time since 1991, are you just waiting to see who goes farther so you know to whom to proclaim your loyalty?
Make your choice now. I'm an Oilers fan. I'm not going to be adding those silly car flags to my vehicle, though. I've got a pair of fuzzy dice hanging from my rearview mirror, and that's enough. My philosophy is that if you weren't flying that flag all winter long, don't put it up now just because the team's in the playoffs and has a shot at the Stanley Cup.
The only thing you're allowed to do differently is grow a playoff beard. I've taken up this tradition myself, as it seems to be one that's almost all but vanished from the NHL.
You used to be able to judge how far a team had made it in the playoffs by the beard growth. Stubble? First round. Grizzly Adams? Stanley Cup champ. In a box under a crawl space somewhere I have a hockey card of Billy Ranford hoisting the Conn Smythe trophy in 1990, and he's got the full-on disgusting neck-beard action going on, too.
But who really does that anymore? It's dying out. Some of the veterans still carry it on -- Ray Bourque I remember in his last season with the Avalanche a few years ago looked like a freakin' lumberjack when he hoisted his first and only Stanley Cup.
The worst offenders in this lost tradition are easily the Dallas Stars from a few years ago. Bunch of punks. Dyed their hair blond, said their wives didn't like the beard thing. Well, new traditions have to start somewhere, and I appreciate a team doing something as a group to promote unity -- my own high school basketball team all got brushcuts from the same barber my senior year -- but you're in a rough and tumble sport like hockey and you let your opponents know that your wife won't let you grow a beard? Why not just slap "please beat the crap out of me" signs to the back of your jerseys for the rest of the series?
I think the blond hair thing is starting to catch on, especially as junior teams get into the tradition, since younger hockey players might not be able to grow them yet. So expect to see this blossom into other hair-related superstitions in the NHL -- mohawks, shaved heads, etc. I think the only other kind of playoff-hair trend I could get behind would be if everyone on the team grew their hair into mullets. Ryan Smyth's already on board with that one. Of course, if everyone in the NHL has mullets -- isn't that how things used to be anyway? Mullets aren't called "hockey hair" for nothing.
I'm too young to get all "back in my day" on you, so please take note that I'm not claiming that hockey was better when I was a kid. Everyone knows that hockey is always best from the time you were six until you were 16 or so. That's the Golden Decade for any sport, for every fan. Just once I'd like to hear some old-timer express the opinion that the game today is far superior to the game played when he wa a a young'un: "Now, that's hockey! Why, back when I was a kid, the game wasn't nearly as good as it is now! Players had a lot less respect for each other back then! Not like players today, who are far more talented than the bums I used to watch stumble around the Forum! Players back then could never compete with today's stars."
I don't think the game changes. I think players are stronger and faster than they used to be, but I think that talent transcends generations. I think if you were to take 1980s Wayne Gretzky and face him off against 1950s Rocket Richard, Gretzky would skate rings around him. But if Richard played three decades later, coming up in the same system Gretzky did? He'd be just as fearsome as the star whose suspension touched off a citywide riot.
What really changes as we get older are our priorities. We don't have the time when we grow up, get jobs, get married and have children to spend as much time watching games, devouring the stats page. Time spent doing that often takes away from actual necessities. The basement needs to be cleaned out, the dog needs to be taken for a walk, the baseboards in the kitchen need to be fixed. Someone told me the other day, "You think you're busy now? Wait until the kid comes." People keep scaring me this way.
Life happens, and it's not like I regret that I have less time to follow the Oilers than I used to. I still like to pull out a jersey to put on when I'm watching the game -- just between you and me, it helps them win. But there's something a little sad about a guy my age whose priorities haven't shifted somewhat.
Having said that, if my wife interrupts Game 1 against the Red Wings tomorrow night, we're getting divorced.
© Copyright 2006, Fort McMurray Today
By DAN MACEACHERN
Today staff
The playoffs are about to start. How come I've yet to see a single one of those stupid Calgary Flames car flags that seemed to have spread to hundreds of cars two years ago like some kind of vehicular rash? Did you bandwagon fans throw them out when the Flames lost to the Lightning? Since the Oilers and the Flames have both made the playoffs for the first time since 1991, are you just waiting to see who goes farther so you know to whom to proclaim your loyalty?
Make your choice now. I'm an Oilers fan. I'm not going to be adding those silly car flags to my vehicle, though. I've got a pair of fuzzy dice hanging from my rearview mirror, and that's enough. My philosophy is that if you weren't flying that flag all winter long, don't put it up now just because the team's in the playoffs and has a shot at the Stanley Cup.
The only thing you're allowed to do differently is grow a playoff beard. I've taken up this tradition myself, as it seems to be one that's almost all but vanished from the NHL.
You used to be able to judge how far a team had made it in the playoffs by the beard growth. Stubble? First round. Grizzly Adams? Stanley Cup champ. In a box under a crawl space somewhere I have a hockey card of Billy Ranford hoisting the Conn Smythe trophy in 1990, and he's got the full-on disgusting neck-beard action going on, too.
But who really does that anymore? It's dying out. Some of the veterans still carry it on -- Ray Bourque I remember in his last season with the Avalanche a few years ago looked like a freakin' lumberjack when he hoisted his first and only Stanley Cup.
The worst offenders in this lost tradition are easily the Dallas Stars from a few years ago. Bunch of punks. Dyed their hair blond, said their wives didn't like the beard thing. Well, new traditions have to start somewhere, and I appreciate a team doing something as a group to promote unity -- my own high school basketball team all got brushcuts from the same barber my senior year -- but you're in a rough and tumble sport like hockey and you let your opponents know that your wife won't let you grow a beard? Why not just slap "please beat the crap out of me" signs to the back of your jerseys for the rest of the series?
I think the blond hair thing is starting to catch on, especially as junior teams get into the tradition, since younger hockey players might not be able to grow them yet. So expect to see this blossom into other hair-related superstitions in the NHL -- mohawks, shaved heads, etc. I think the only other kind of playoff-hair trend I could get behind would be if everyone on the team grew their hair into mullets. Ryan Smyth's already on board with that one. Of course, if everyone in the NHL has mullets -- isn't that how things used to be anyway? Mullets aren't called "hockey hair" for nothing.
I'm too young to get all "back in my day" on you, so please take note that I'm not claiming that hockey was better when I was a kid. Everyone knows that hockey is always best from the time you were six until you were 16 or so. That's the Golden Decade for any sport, for every fan. Just once I'd like to hear some old-timer express the opinion that the game today is far superior to the game played when he wa a a young'un: "Now, that's hockey! Why, back when I was a kid, the game wasn't nearly as good as it is now! Players had a lot less respect for each other back then! Not like players today, who are far more talented than the bums I used to watch stumble around the Forum! Players back then could never compete with today's stars."
I don't think the game changes. I think players are stronger and faster than they used to be, but I think that talent transcends generations. I think if you were to take 1980s Wayne Gretzky and face him off against 1950s Rocket Richard, Gretzky would skate rings around him. But if Richard played three decades later, coming up in the same system Gretzky did? He'd be just as fearsome as the star whose suspension touched off a citywide riot.
What really changes as we get older are our priorities. We don't have the time when we grow up, get jobs, get married and have children to spend as much time watching games, devouring the stats page. Time spent doing that often takes away from actual necessities. The basement needs to be cleaned out, the dog needs to be taken for a walk, the baseboards in the kitchen need to be fixed. Someone told me the other day, "You think you're busy now? Wait until the kid comes." People keep scaring me this way.
Life happens, and it's not like I regret that I have less time to follow the Oilers than I used to. I still like to pull out a jersey to put on when I'm watching the game -- just between you and me, it helps them win. But there's something a little sad about a guy my age whose priorities haven't shifted somewhat.
Having said that, if my wife interrupts Game 1 against the Red Wings tomorrow night, we're getting divorced.
© Copyright 2006, Fort McMurray Today
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