NHL Playoffs Teach Life Lessons
by Misopogon | June 1st, 2009
The Stanley Cup is annually bequeathed to the hockey team that can grow the most facial hair.
MLB does a lot of things better than the NHL, but one thing hockey has right is a longstanding, well-established connection between facial hair and winning. While players tend to rock whatever they like during the regular season, come the first day of Passover,* the razors get thrown out like so many leftover bagels.
The tradition is so well-established, it even has its own page on Wikipedia.
For the 2008-09 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Detroit Red Wings are using the connection as their chief promotional tag-line: “The Beard is Back.” They’re also now just two wins from hoisting Lord Stanley for the fifth time in a dozen seasons. There’s a reason these guys are pro sports’ model franchise.
After the jump: The Beard is Back; The Stache Never Left
Playoff beards, however, are fleeting things. A man awarded Lord Stanley’s Cup while still bearing his full postseason barb-age may emerge a day later without even a trace of the facial hair that accompanied him down the long playoff road. Sometimes, the glorious growths don’t even make it out of the locker room celebration!.
The Stanley Cup Finals have seen beards come and go, but there’s one facial growth that has long been a constant:
Bill McCreary demonstrates the NHL's official signal for "Respect the Mustache."
Bill McCreary has been reffing NHL games since 1982. He is known for his even-handed justice, a “let ‘em play” style, and a walrus-style lip sweater that would make Wilford Brimley green with envy. Since 1994, he has been selected to officiate all but one NHL cup-deciding series, wearing the whistle for more Stanley Cup Finals games than any other active official (including living legend Kerry Fraser). During the NHL lockout, he fixed kitchen cabinets, and twice saved the Mushroom Kingdom from the evil Koopa.
In 2008, McCreary caught some flack for calling a phantom penalty against someone other than the Tomas Holmstrom, and was left out of the playoffs’ finale. The streak ended, and the 2008 Stanley Cup Finals between Detroit’s Red Wings and Pittsburgh’s whiny little bitches Penguins began without McCreary and his calming stache. The result was inevitable: the stacheless officiating took it in the face. Every whistle was questioned. Every play brought another complaint from Penguins’ captain and NHL glamour-stud Sidney Crosby.**
During the off-season, NHL Commish Gary Bettman barred the referees’ association from ever again listening to a Dallas Star.
This year, both the Penguins and Red Wings (and their new crop of beards) are back in the Finals, as is McCreary and his stache. But while either team is bound to emerge clean-shaven within the next few weeks, we can expect McCreary and his reverential whiskers to be around for many, many championships to come.
So I guess there’s only one lesson that hockey has to teach David Wright and the Mets, but it’s an important one: the secret to winning a championship is right under your nose.
*Passover starts in the spring. Playoffs start in the spring. Jews throw out their bread for Passover. Hockey players grow out their beards for the playoffs. Jews smear lamb’s blood on their doors. Hockey players smear each other on their doors. Really, they’re the same thing!
**I plan to mention this in a future blog entry but just before KC manager Trey Hillman got tossed last week, there was an interesting exchange in which Hillman was passed by the (non-stached) home plate umpire to the (stached) 1st base ump, probably because, as everyone knows, it’s harder to bitch at a guy with a mustache.
Tags: detroit red wings, mlb, nhl, pittsburgh penguins, stanley cup
Stache Spotting | Misopogon | 
June 1, 2009
