As most people know, hockey players are a superstitious group of people.
One of the greatest traditions in the sport is players growing beards to the best of their ability as they embark on their venture for 16 wins in the post-season and Hockey’s Holy Grail, the Stanley Cup.
A little more than a week ago, NBC Sports Chairman Mark Lazarus, who is obviously not a fan of playoff beards, was quoted as saying he wishes all players would stop growing beards in the playoffs.
Apparently Mr. Lazarus believes the beards are hiding the faces of young, attractive men and the players are hard to distinguish from each other when they start to let the whiskers grow. Are you telling me the giant numbers on their backs and numbers on the front of their helmets aren’t enough?
I didn’t know broken noses and missing teeth was the new sexy, but whatever, I’ll buy into that being attractive. What I won’t buy into is NBC Sports’ desire to ruin a longtime tradition to try and market younger players and faces of franchises, like Steven Stamkos for the Tampa Bay Lightning and Jonathan Toews for the Chicago Blackhawks. Both of them sported mighty fine playoff beards, I may add, going into Monday’s final game won by the ’Hawks. Just because they are the faces of their teams doesn’t mean their faces have to be seen.
Martin Brodeur was the face of the New Jersey Devils for more than 20 years, but as a goaltender you barely saw his face ‘cause it was always concealed by a mask. That didn’t make him unrecognizable like Lazarus believes playoff beards do.
Washington Capitals captain Alexander Ovechkin, on the other hand, isn’t the best looking man in the world. Would Lazarus be saying the same thing about playoff beards if it was the Capitals in the finals instead of the Lightning? I don’t think so.
“I know there are some traditions and superstitions that you can’t mess with,” Lazarus told the Chicago Tribune. “But this is one tradition I could do without.”
If playoff beards are a tradition you could do without, what is a tradition that can be spared by the almighty NBC Sports?
Before we know it, NBC Sports will demand teams who win their respective conferences hoist the trophy they receive for doing so — the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl for the Western Conference and the Prince of Wales Trophy for the Eastern Conference. Do they want perfect shots of attractive and popular players hoisting a trophy that isn’t the main reason they are still playing hockey well into June?
Usually when a team wins either the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl or the Prince of Wales Trophy they will not touch the trophy, believing that it isn’t their final goal and it is bad luck if they touch it. If they do so they will not win the Stanley Cup.
Jerome Iginla was the last captain to hoist the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl when he led the Calgary Flames to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2004 only to fall to the Lightning in seven games.
On the Eastern side, you’ll have to go back to 2010 when Mike Richards, who was then captain of the Philadelphia Flyers, decided to press his team’s luck and touched the Prince of Wales Trophy. Like Iginla, Richards and the Flyers would go on to lose the finals in six games to the Blackhawks.
Don’t get me wrong, taking photos of teams celebrating their conference win with a nifty piece of hardware is all fine and dandy, but slowly and surely this tradition/superstition has become a talked about debate year in and year out.
Am I saying NBC Sports is going to begin forcing teams to touch their conference championship trophies? No, but I also don’t think they’ll force players to cut their playoff beards. Playoff beards are just as necessary to the game of hockey as throwing hats onto the ice after a hat trick or having the starting goalie lead the team onto the ice.
Just don’t mess with traditions.
