Prior to every NHL campaign, teams put their players through a bunch of boring administrative stuff — physicals, paperwork and, most importantly for the purposes of this post, headshots.
The headshot is a curious thing. It’s not often used, so players tend to treat it like high school picture day. Show up in whatever shape you’re in, completely oblivious to the fact someone is going to capture your image, sit down, stare at the camera and hope it turns out, you know, not awful.
Of course, the whole “show up in whatever shape you’re in” part can lead to some, uh, interesting results.
Like in the case of the following five NHLers:
Brent Burns
This one has been making the rounds for a while (see here) so there’s really no need to go into great detail about the bushman of San Jose.
Here he be:
Greg Zanon
I like the juxtaposition at play. How can one man’s head be so immaculately clean, yet his beard look like it was glued on, then sent through a wind tunnel?
Rick DiPietro
He may or may not have spent the lockout following Phish around in an ’83 Volkswagen bus.
Kris Versteeg
The strength of Steeger’s mustache growth seems to be in strips directly below his nostrils, which is weirdly fascinating.
Nikolai Khabibulin
And rounding it out is the ‘Bulin Wall, looking far more disheveled than he did in his infamous 2010 DUI mugshot.
Now, for an entirely different set of headshots, check out this gallery of New Jersey Devils. That is the cleanest-shaven hockey team ever.
We mentioned last year about how Brian Burke waxed poetic over Lou Lamoriello’s strict grooming policies, but just to refresh:
Burke (courtesy the National Post):
“When I played at Providence College, we played West Point, we played the U.S. military academy, at West Point. Now, this is the ’70s, we’re playing teams with guys who have hair down to here [points to shoulders]. Our hair is not allowed to touch our ear.
“Like, I just got a haircut today so that Lou won’t call me and tell me I need a haircut.”
Burke pointed to his freshly trimmed sideburns and continued.
“So we’re playing the cadets. We’re at centre ice and their guys skate over: ‘Hey man, what’s with the hair? We HAVE to do this. What’s with you guys?’
And we’re like, ‘we HAVE to do it, too.”
All of New Jersey’s haircuts are believed to be modeled on this example:
