The Bernstein Brief: Silly Beard Season Is Back
By Dan Bernstein--
CBSChicago.com senior columnist
(CBS) In the name of team unity behind a shared vision of glory, hockey teams grow beards.
Pretty much every team does it now, so the effort becomes a perfunctory exercise in cleaving to standards rather than anything remotely subversive. Where the hippies of the '60s and early '70s let their facial-hair freak flags fly to delineate their separation from mainstream society, the NHL beards have become the opposite -- all about fitting in, following the herd.
Thank the Islanders of the '80s for the silliness, as they planted the seeds accidentally for this forced superstition that now also has spread to infect the community at large.
So here they come again in Chicago, the overweight fanboys pretending to be part of the team by initiating a personal Itchy and Scratchy Show to show the world how much they care about whether the Blackhawks win or lose, and media members are engaging in day-by-day beard watches that entertain or interest nobody.
Patrick Kane will try again, we assume, as his has improved incrementally each playoff season even as his hairline recedes proportionally, as if he will eventually look like Shel Silverstein or Lenin.
And Nikola Mirotic can just laugh at all of it.
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's "Boers and Bernstein Show" in afternoon drive. Follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein and read more of his columns here.