The playoff beard: myth or reality?

Beards have become a common sight on players come playoff time. Fans have seen James Harden sporting a great display of facial hair on the hardwood. When you catch an NHL playoff game, it’s hard to find someone not rocking a beard. But where does the playoff beard come from?

According to Denis Potvin, retired hockey defender, the playoff beard can be traced back to the 1980s New York Islanders hockey team.

The team had to play four games in five nights, leaving little time to shave, and after winning all four games, it was a superstition that they needed to keep the beards.

Some other sports have started taking part in the playoff beard phenomena, but it is definitely a hockey dominated tradition. According to the Wall Street Journal, there are only seven players that are not rocking a beard from the final four teams in the NHL playoffs. That means there are 69 players from four teams donning a beard in this year’s NHL playoffs.

It is hard to argue against the correlation between success and the playoff beard. Looking at the superstition’s roots, the New York Islanders won four straight championships after growing their beards.

Along with the Islanders, Bjorn Borg grew his beard for five straight Wimbledon championships and won five straight.

For a more modern look at the beards, there’s Harden on the basketball court. The man seems to put more points up on the board with every centimeter his beard grows. There has to be some sort of intimidation factor when facing a man with that mean of a beard.

Along with the great beards, it is always fun to see the attempts from men who don’t have the same degree of success in growing a beard like Harden’s. It is normally a good way to identify the young guns and proven veterans on each team.

A great example of this would be Sidney Crosby. Crosby has seen multiple playoff runs in his years at Pittsburg and has yet to grow a respectable beard. This isn’t to say he hasn’t tried each year, just that it never flourished into anything we can call a beard.

Playoff beards in baseball are a different story. It is common to see many players rocking a beard come October, but they have had them all year, so is it really a playoff beard? For example, Dustin Ackley has been rocking a beard since spring training, so if the Mariners make it to the playoffs, is that a playoff beard?

The playoff beard has turned into a well-known phenomena in sports. No sport can claim the overriding dominance in the playoff beard category, except hockey which seems to the trendsetter when it comes to beards in the playoffs.