Playoffs: the wonderful time of year where men let their facial hair run rampant in a show of unity; not so much with their team, as with the game itself.
We are all hockey players, and this is something we do.
But beyond that, players sometimes feel the need to demonstrate their commitment to their team, and to going the distance and winning a championship together. That brings about the many different traditions that take place in a hockey locker room during a playoff run.
Yesterday on "Pardon The Interruption", they ran a clip of a hockey team with bleached blonde hair for playoffs and asked the pressing question "will it catch on?" Assuming I wasn't watching a re-run from an episode that originally aired in the '90's, I'd say they're a little late on picking up that trend around the hockey world.
Teams have been making themselves unattractive for playoffs (with a focus on the head region) for quite some time now. I've got pictures of myself from my midget hockey days with the type of orangey hair that screams at-home-dye-job-gone-wrong.
I looked like Kathy Griffin with a bob.
But hey — we all did it, and while I'm not exactly sure the value of making yourself ugly to win (we couldn't all just get super-great haircuts?), I guess it did demonstrate that we were all committed enough to the same goal to go through with it. And that year, our coaches jumped on board too.
We did the bleach thing again in junior — this time the team actually took us to a hair place to get it done — but we fell short of our goal, losing in the finals. Obviously the blonde look didn't work, which only meant one thing for next year: shaved heads.
Every year before I started playing pro hockey, I had to fear for my head come playoffs. And worse, in college "team mullets" was the go-to look. There's nothing like the statement, "I'd really like to reach my ultimate goal, but when they photograph me, I'd still like to feel a little humiliated."
I have no idea how this mutilation of the head became a tradition in hockey.
Beyond the junior levels, it can still get a little tradition (superstition?) heavy inside the room. Going the distance isn't easy, so it's nice to have something to lean on when times get tough.
A lot of teams will have a board or a stick with one through 16 written on it — as you pile up the wins, you collect the game puck at the final buzzer and hammer it on there. If you happen to be playing Chris Pronger's team, you may have to substitute the odd game sheet or a fill-in puck, but the point is the same — this is a journey, and one step at a time, we're going to get there together.
The greatest tradition I was privy to was the pyramid of team shot glasses, each one with a player's number on it that sat shrine-like in the corner of the dressing room with a big bottle of Jack in front of it. With each series we won, we shared a toast to progress. I can assure you, dehydrated after a playoff battle, that itself was enough for a little warming glow.
In the eras past, booze figured a little more prominently in the celebration of playoff wins. I know of a couple old-school players — and mind you, this is really old school — that used to share a six-pack after playoff wins and chuck the empties in the same spot at the arena, refusing to remove them until they were eliminated from playoffs.
Their personal trash heap ended up being a testament to the amount of battles won, a little shrine of their own that became a lovable mountain after a Stanley Cup victory.
Every player seems to have their own version of "I'm doing that until we lose" in playoffs — whether that means not washing their underwear or just having the exact same petty banter with a teammate before the drop of the puck. It's about the routines and traditions that remind you of your commitment to the end goal.
Of course, NHL players tend to involve themselves in less public shows of team commitment — they are grown men under a spotlight, after all — but there's an emphasis on "public" there. Behind closed doors, most teams that are serious about lifting our sport's Holy Grail will have some obscure playoff gimmick to lean on.
And some guys … well, some guys just have to show their commitment to the cause on their own, even if the entire team doesn't jump on board. Nice to see the mullet return, Mr. Kane.
All I know is that it's playoff time, and that's the best tradition of all.