Hockey, as a game steeped in tradition, likely has as many unwritten rules as there are actual ones that appear in the NHL’s rule book. One of the more visual representations of hockey’s unwritten rules is the playoff beard.
Hockey players famously do not shave once the playoffs begin, so after the approximately two months it takes for a team to win the Stanley Cup, a lot of facial hair is present as members of the Cup-winning team skate hockey’s holy grail around the ice in celebration.
Conversely, once a team’s playoff run ends, the beards that the players have grown with such hope usually disappear quickly.
Some players have even been known to shave immediately after leaving the ice following one of hockey’s other great traditions, the post-series handshake line between the teams.
Going from the ice right to grabbing the shaving cream shows just how seriously players take the privilege of wearing a playoff beard.
A scheduling quirk had the Predators go six days between their final regular season game and Sunday night’s 4-2 Game 1 loss against the Vancouver Canucks. That unexpected time off had players asking around the locker room what the protocol was for such a scenario.
None of the Predators could come up with a rule, even an unwritten one, for the team to follow during their ramp up to the start of the postseason.
“I shaved last night for the last time and let ’er go now from here on in,” defenseman Luke Schenn said following a practice before the playoffs began. “It’s kind of nice to get lazy.”
Between the intensity of hockey games and the tough travel schedule, that is about the only thing players are lazy about in the postseason.
Getting a head start
In his first season as Predators general manager, Barry Trotz revamped the roster he inherited from his predecessor David Poile. Trotz wanted more character and leadership in the locker room, so he signed free agents like Schenn and Ryan O’Reilly, both of whom have Stanley Cup wins on their hockey resume.
Little did O’Reilly and Schenn know that some of their younger Predator teammates would be soliciting beard-growing advice from the grizzled vets on the eve of the start of the playoffs.
“I asked around to confirm the rule,” forward Luke Evangelista says. “I asked O’Reilly. I figure he has some experience, and he said I can start whenever I want after the last game, so I’ve already started. I’m not touching this until we’re done.”
The 22-year-old Evangelista is making his NHL playoff debut. Many of his teammates said that they were anxious to see how the young-looking Evangelista’s beard will develop. Defenseman Jeremy Lauzon even wondered aloud if Evangelista has ever shaved. Evangelista confirmed that he has and does shave.
“For him, I told him he should get started as soon as possible, get a head start on it,” O’Reilly said with a laugh. “It’s a great tradition. It will be fun.”
Despite being a target as a rookie in the locker room, Evangelista is confident in his ability to grow facial hair, giving a nod to his Italian heritage as well.
“I grow a decent one in playoffs, actually,” Evangelista says. “I was just saying about last year in our run in Milwaukee, I had a good one going, so hopefully we play for a few months and (these) guys can all get eyes on it.”
Last year, the Admirals made it to the conference finals in the AHL’s playoffs, allowing the players sufficient time to show their beard-growing mettle.
Further complicating matters for these discussions is that many players already have beards. What to do there? Go cleanly shaven? Trim it up some? Again, the players were divided in their answers.
“I think everybody has a different style,” Lauzon said before the Vancouver series began. “I kind of trimmed it a little bit. I don’t like bare skin. From now on, I’m not going to shave anymore.”
Like Lauzon, O’Reilly normally wears a beard, so he did a little maintenance on it before the puck dropped in Vancouver for Game 1.
“I did one little trim, and that will be it for hopefully a very long run,” O’Reilly says.
Staying natural
One mistake that the players need to avoid is one that former Nashville defenseman Cody Franson made many years ago during his time with the Predators. Unhappy with the lack of color in his playoff beard, Franson hit the hair care aisle one day and picked up some Just for Men and applied it to his beard.
The rapid color change did not go unnoticed by his teammates, and he was chirped ruthlessly by them.
“There’s going to be some patchy ones for sure and there’s going to be some good ones,” Schenn says.
For Schenn, O’Reilly, Evangelista, and all the rest of the Predators, they hope to see just how good, or even bad, the beards look in late June when the Stanley Cup is handed to the winning team.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman hands the Cup to the team captain after it is won. The captain then decides which player to hand it to next, and the progression continues from there.
As a rookie, Evangelista would likely be a little bit down in the succession of players as they skate with the Cup. Those few minutes would be just a little bit of extra time for him to grow that beard a little more and show his teammates what he’s capable of doing in the facial hair realm.