The custom of hockey’s playoff beard goes again to at the very least the mid-Eighties, with the Detroit Red Wings extensively credited with starting the facial hair phenomenon.

The playoff beard rub may need began final month accidentally.

Go again to April 26, when the Florida Panthers staved off elimination by beating the Boston Bruins in additional time of Game 5 of the first-round sequence. Overjoyed within the second, Panthers teammates Marc Staal and Aaron Ekblad gave one another a giant hug on the bench. Completely regular stuff.

Here’s the bizarre half: As they embraced, they realized their beards have been rubbing up towards the opposite. And because it labored that evening, it’s turn into a celebratory routine for Staal and Ekblad.

“Yeah, it’s a unique one, for sure,” Staal mentioned.

Whatever works. If the Panthers assume that it’s helped them to get to the Stanley Cup Final, so be it. Although there’s a superstition that sometimes prevents speaking about how superstitious hockey gamers are presently of 12 months, Staal and Ekblad are having fun with their new custom.

“Just pure happiness, rubbing beards with Marc Staal,” Ekblad mentioned within the din of the postgame celebration when Florida swept Carolina by successful Game 4 of the East last. “That’s what we’ve been doing.”

As one would count on, given hockey’s unwritten playoff guidelines, there’s a ton of beards within the Panthers locker room as of late. Some are new for the reason that postseason began, some are a bit scraggly, a few of the youthful gamers are struggling to maintain tempo - after which there’s the man who has the locker between Staal and Ekblad, whose beard stands out amongst all others on the Florida roster.

Radko Gudas’ beard goes properly previous his chin; in equity, having one can also be a part of his regular-season routine as properly, and he merely stops trimming it as typically for the postseason.

“I try to maintain it as much as possible,” Gudas mentioned, “mainly so it doesn’t get in the way of me eating.”

On the opposite facet of the locker room, Panthers ahead Ryan Lomberg isn’t stunned that Gudas hasn’t joined within the Staal-Ekblad beard custom. Put merely, for as good as Staal and Ekblad’s beards are, they only aren’t in Gudas’ class.

“He’s probably the only one allowed to touch that thing,” Lomberg mentioned. “I would stay away from that beard.”

Lomberg does admit this a lot: If his beard was as full as those Staal and Ekblad have, he may be tempted to get in on their enjoyable.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think I can include myself in that conversation because mine is not even nearly as strong as theirs,” Lomberg mentioned. “Not remotely close to the same conversation.”

There are numerous different traditions, rituals, no matter you wish to name them. Panthers coach Paul Maurice calls them routines - “we don’t let any of them slide toward superstition,” he mentioned - though it needs to be famous that he additionally is aware of somebody who has baked a cake for each sport within the playoffs.

And now the beard rub is headed to the Stanley Cup Final, Florida’s first journey to the title sequence in 27 years.

“You get certain little things that you do along the way,” Staal mentioned. “It’s funny. It’s fun.”

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