CHICAGO – The playoff beard. One of the Stanley Cup Playoffs’ greatest traditions, as players go from baby-faced athletes to burly mountain men the deeper their teams advance in the postseason.
(Or, in some cases, go from baby-faced athletes to … baby-faced athletes with terrible patchy beards.)
The players love them. The fans love them. But someone has to be the Scrooge of Scruff, and that man is Mark Lazarus, the chairman of NBC Sports.
According to Ed Sherman of the Chicago Tribune, Lazarus actually lobbied the NHL to end the tradition of playoff beards because, in his opinion, they hinder the development of new stars in the League during the playoffs.