Playoff Beards and Playoff Chances
Thursday, April 8th, 2010 5:11 pm by mrenninger
Beards?
Yours truly's 2007 playoff beard. Notice the matching black eye.
My all-time favorite beard may be Olympic swimmer Amanda Beard, who posed for Playboy a couple years back, but in a very close second would have to be the Playoff Beard. Not shaving while your team is in the playoffs connects one to the team itself. Like wearing a jersey or having a flag on your car, but much more bad-ass. I have only been able to do the Playoff Beard once, the shaky playoff run in 2007 after winning the President’s Trophy. Over a month of not shaving becomes noticeable for people like me, and after being compounded with a couple things (the Flyers finishing dead last, the Penguins being eliminated), I felt like the coolest cat on the Penn State campus. For those of us who have wives, girlfriends, or simply a job in which one interacts with people or wears a suit, growing copious amounts of facial hair is indeed a sacrifice, one made to show our determination for Buffalo to win a Stanley Cup. It can make people at work eye you wearily, like in Fight Club when Ed Norton starts showing up to work with his face mashed up and his boss interacts with him in a half-disgusted, half-terrified way until Norton eventually wigs out and kicks his own ass in the bosses office. A playoff beard conveys passion and toughness, and while WGR550.com recently set out some rules pertaining to the beard, I have a couple points about the process myself:
First: conditioner. Learn to love it. If you have the tendency to turn into Grizzly Adams after ten days, your face and neck are going to start itching like crazy. Conditioner will do wonders to make that itch go away, making it easier to sleep, and you won’t go through your days scratching your neck like Tyrone Biggum in the Chappelle’s Show skits.
Second: Trimming. My friend Sean adapted accordingly during the Flyers long run two years ago, when he would trim his beard for job interviews. That’s a key, if you are unemployed, and have the prospects of becoming not unemployed, you can trim. The economy is bad enough. Wedding’s or other social occasions, whether with a wife, girlfriend or whatever, are nearly always non trimming events, with one caveat: I think you can shave the neck, but leave the rest of the beard untouched. This will show class as well as dedication. And yes I’ve placed this rule in here because I have a wedding to attend during the first round.
As for start time, I’m shaving after the New Jersey game Sunday and that will be it. I don’t shave very often anyways, and I at least want my beard to show that it’s for the playoffs, and not just my typical laziness. If we get past the first round, my beard should be getting into hardcore range. Best of luck to all you beard growers, and if you can’t grow a beard, at least do something, even if it’s just one of those radioactive blonde mustaches.
(I do have one other playoff tradition to share, this one slightly less known. In 2001, while the Sabres were making a playoff run, the students in Tonawanda High School developed the tradition of checking each other into lockers or in the hallways (“open-ice” checks we called them). When the bewildered student looked up the person who laid the check would simply say, or yell “playoff hockey.” Unfortunately I’ve never experienced this in any other setting, not college, grad school, nor my office, but I have always felt it needs to be given a chance again because come on, if it was cool when I was seventeen, it has to still be cool at 26, right?)
CHANCES?
With the team’s schizophrenic play this season I don’t really believe anyone who claims to know what the Sabres are going to do in the playoffs. Like I have said at certain points this season, nothing would surprise me, whether it’s losing in five games in the first round or making another run to the conference finals. Consider that the Sabres have losses by the scores of 5-0, 6-2, 4-0 to the Islanders, Panthers and Blue Jackets respectively, while having wins of 7-1, 7-2 and 6-2 against Tampa, Phoenix and Montreal. It seems like every three games they turn in a train wreck, but see that’s the beauty of the playoffs: you can afford a train wreck every three games, that simply equals a 4-2 series win everytime. Of that math makes the major assumption that the team would win every game where they actually tried hard, and as we all know from some of the Ottawa and Pittsburgh games this season, that is simply not the case. It’s just a matter of having enough cajones to scrape out the tough wins, and we do know they can do that, which is why it has been so frustrating this season when they haven’t.
We must have marbles.
I refuse to make any predictions, lest to jinx the team. But I do like how they are coming together, and it seems that Ennis and Gerbe have injected some life into the lineup. I loved the Buffalo News article detailing the new tradition of the white sport coat going to the player of the game, complete with each winner writing some inspirational saying on the back of it. Normally these type of gimmicks come off as cheesy, as forced but it doesn’t seem that way with this team, and chemistry cannot be underrated enough in the playoffs. Around the trade deadline when the players were saying they didn’t want the chemistry disturbed, I was saying “screw their sense of chemistry,” to borrow a line from Shutter Island (I’m so tempted to throw in a spoiler here since I’m the only one of my friend’s to have seen it, while they keep telling me “don’t say anything, I’m going to see it!” It’s been out for three months now, you aren’t going to see it).
I like this Drew better...
Their chemistry was the problem was my argument, their apathy was infecting the team, and I’m still not convinced I was wrong. But there is no denying that the team has been coming together in a way not seen since the previous playoff squads several years back. When Connolly, Vanek and Kaleta went down, many may have thought the team would falter, that a skid was on the way, yet the team has continued to chug along, with the rookies playing like veterans and guys like Kennedy and Grier looking like they did in October. But I swear to God, if I see Drew Stafford start one playoff game with the words “healthy scratch” next to Tyler Ennis’ name in the lineup, I am absolutely going to lose it. One good game doesn’t mean you don’t suck Stafford; remember you showed up for a goal and a game winner in the shootout and we thought your slump was over? That was what, two months ago?
So, oddly enough, after 79 games the Sabres are Northeast Division champs, may reach 100 points and the second seed in the conference for the playoffs. Does anyone feel a sense of “how did that happen?” I mean, I watched nearly every game this season and I don’t have a clue. I feel like I’ve watched a .500 team, and maybe that’s because our record has been around that since the Olympic break, but then again, the standings don’t lie, and if we make the playoffs, I couldn’t care less that Vanek has been a ghost for stretches of the season. There is reason to be optimistic, and there is reason to be guarded; this playoffs will be like nothing I can remember- a complete and utter crapshoot every night.That being said, the team has a possible Calder winner in Myers and a shoo-in for the Vezina in Ryan Miller, who has become the most awkward American hero since Jeff Goldblum in Independance Day. We have an arena that will be deafening every game with thousands of fans partying outside of the arena, so I think this is time to enjoy it. I will be partying in the plaza with my “Doin’ Work, Son” Mike Grier t-shirt- yes I got one made- and if the team is lucky enough, will be inside the arena for home game #3 of the second round losing my mind. I got a text from one of my friends earlier pertaining to the Party in the Plaza and it said the following:
I do not work down there but do plan on going. I was just reading about it and getting pumped. I’m starting to get on board with this team.
It’s never too late.
Get ready, it's almost time
April 8th, 2010 at 8:56 pm
I’m definitely growing a beard as well, though I’ll probably shave the day before the first Playoff game. By the end of the week, it should look pretty sweet.
As for this team, who the hell knows how they will do, but I totally agree with your point about Stafford. There is no possible way Ruff can validate starting him over Ennis in the Playoffs. Ennis is just way too good. I can’t wait to watch his career with the team.
April 9th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
the day before the first game is totally acceptable, thats what i was going to do but after conferring with friends we arrived at the agreement that end of the regular season works too…and yes, i love ennis. i just hope he changes his number to something cooler than 63
April 14th, 2010 at 5:37 am
I think we’ll find that Stafford is the key to our chances this year. So long as he is concussed, we have a shot!
For me, the key to this series is in the match-ups and line change advantages. Boston don’t have the depth scoring as Buff seem to have, but my guess is that if Butler plays, they’ll look to get their top line on against him. My hope is that If butler plays, he plays the home games, so we can match the line changes to protect him a bet and perhaps let Sekerja play the away games.
April 24th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
It’s exciting now that we are in full playoff mode. It’s true what they say, it truly is a brand new season. Teams that showed no hint of talent in the regular season suddenly ignite.
August 15th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
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