Since the beginning of the playoffs, newcomers to the game of hockey have asked me what all this talk of growing a “playoff beard” is about. I explained to them that it is a tradition in hockey for players to stop shaving at the beginning of the playoffs and withhold shaving until their playoff run is over. This is done out of superstition (hockey players are VERY superstitious) and as a way of visibly marking how far the team has come.

While the young Penguin players as well as a few of my friends and myself are trying in vain to grow our own playoff beards, I have noticed one person who had a terrific playoff beard: SVC’s very own, Boniface Wimmer. That man must have been in an awfully long playoff series. Maybe Boniface Wimmer and the other Benedictines spent the winter months playing some pond hockey on Saint Vincent Lake (if it was even in existence back then). It must have been a challenge to skate in a Benedictine habit.