Playoff Beards in Full Bloom in Finals
(from the Press of Atlantic City)
By Jason Mazda
Staff Writer
June 7, 2010 - The Stanley Cup finals are a time when you can learn a lot about a player.
How much grit and determination he has. Whether he thrives on the biggest stage or folds under pressure.
And what he looks like when he stops shaving for more than a month.
The playoff beard has been a hockey tradition since the 1980s, when the New York Islanders popularized it. Players put away their razors as soon as the regular season ends and don't get them back out until their team either is eliminated or wins the Stanley Cup.
As the Flyers and the Chicago Blackhawks took the ice for Game 5 of the finals on Sunday night, many of them had the kind of thick beards one would expect to see on a lumberjack. Others sported sparse ones that conjured images of that kid in high school who wanted so badly to appear older. Almost all of the players had at least some facial hair.
"It's tradition," Flyers forward Darroll Powe said. "It's something that's been around for as long as I can remember. You know, you grow up and it's playoffs and beards."
The practice has spread beyond just hockey players. Many Philadelphia Eagles players and coaches grew beards during their run to the 2009 NFC championship game. And some fans now grow them as a show of support - or just because it gives them an excuse to do one less thing in the morning.
"Laziness," Flyers forward Ian Laperriere said. "I don't want to shave."
Laughing, Laperriere asked for support from his linemate, Blair Betts, whose patchy beard makes him look like a college student during exam week.
"It's the one time of year when I can grow a beard and not look completely ridiculous," Betts said, agreeing.
Still, many players groom a little bit, especially on the neck.
"I trim it. There are no rules," Laperriere said. "We make the rules."
The playoffs really do separate the men from the boys when it comes to beards.
One look at the Flyers before Sunday's game was enough to recognize their oldest player - Laperriere, 36, whose thick, black beard is speckled with gray hairs - and their youngest, 21-year-old James van Riemsdyk, whose cheeks are still easily visible through a few stray blonde hairs.
"I'm old," Laperriere said. "We've got a couple guys that can't grow beards. ... You've got JVR over there who looks like a - well, he is a teenager."
Van Riemsdyk said his facial hair can be "embarrassing," but it's all in good fun.
"A lot of people ask, 'Is it a playoff beard or a playoff goatee?'" he said. "They think I'm shaving the sides, but that's just how it grows."
Van Riemsdyk's teammates tease, but they remember being his age.
"Even in juniors, I grew my little thing, you can call it a beard," Laperriere said with a smile. "I didn't have that gray part of it."
The beard might be about superstition for some, but not for the Flyers.
Just ask Chris Pronger. Always determined, it seems, to do things his own way, the 35-year-old defenseman has continued using his razor throughout the playoffs. He says having a beard is "itchy."
"Prongs can do whatever he wants," forward Darroll Powe said. "He logs a lot of minutes out there, and I'm sure a beard would be pretty hot."
Pronger actually did grow a playoff beard once earlier in his career.
"It didn't work out," he said.
When he hoisted the Cup in 2007 with Anaheim, his face was as smooth as a baby's.
"Prongs didn't grow a beard and he won a Cup," Laperriere said. "It's got nothing to do with it, but I like it and I'll keep my beard until the last game."
Mostly, growing the beard is just about being one of the guys.
"It's part of hockey tradition," said Van Riemsdyk, a rookie from Middletown, N.J. "You see guys do that every year, and it's kind of fun to be a part of that."
Make no mistake, though: Most of the beards will be gone by the end of this week. Game 7, if necessary, would be Friday night.
"It'll be nice to get the beard off when it's all said and done, for sure," Powe said.
Contact Jason Mazda: 609-272-7193