To Beard or Not To Beard

What better way to get into the World Cup spirit than to bring a little NHL flare into it? I am Canadian after all. One of the most common things to see in the NHL during the months of May and June are the players putting away the shaving gel and razor and letting their faces do the talking, facial hair style. Take a look at some of the fine examples:

This strange and amazingly cool tradition of growing beards in the playoffs was started in the 80's by the New York Islanders. After their run of success ended in the mid-80's the tradition was lost for a while until brought back by the 1995 New Jersey Devils. As time has gone on though, the tradition has been adopted by a few players in the NFL as evidenced by Big Ben and Jake Plummer, and now the fans of the teams often get into the spirit and let the facial locks flow during the post-season. A good evidence of this is my buddy Dave whose beard was unfairly short-lived because his beloved Red Wings were not up to the task in this years playoffs.

By now you are probably wondering what all this has to do with me and the 2010 World Cup. Well, I have decided to take an NHL superstition and bring it to the biggest sporting event in the world. In the hopes of spurring African teams on to victory, I will not allow a blade of any sort to touch my face until the conclusion of the World Cup. Don't get too excited- I'm not incredibly skilled at beard-growing so there won't be much to see, but oh well, that won't stop me from trying. I had a few days head start on the lack of shaving but that's ok because for me the World Cup had pretty much already begun last weekend.

Here's the "beard" on Day 1 of the World Cup:

And if any of you were wondering what reason you would have to cheer for the African teams, let me just say that if an African team makes it all the way to the championship game I will have a special facial hair surprise for you.