Title: Playoff Beard

General Information about Item:

• Magic Superstition (Contagious Magic)
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: S.K.
• Date Collected: 11-6-21

Informant Data:

• S.K. is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2023 who is majoring in economics. He was born and raised in Milton, Massachusetts and began playing hockey at the age of 7. He is currently competing on the varsity hockey team at Dartmouth College.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: In hockey, there is a regular season, where teams play each other a fixed number of times to decide who gets into the playoffs. In the playoffs, there are several rounds in which one team plays against another in a series. If a team loses the series, they are out of the playoffs and will not play another game until next season. The last two teams play in the finals to decide who wins the championship.
• Social Context: This folklore was collected over facetime when asking the informant if he had any superstitions. The informant has always known of the playoff beard since he was a child because it has been around all levels of hockey, even the professional league, for decades. He only started participating in it when he was first able to grow facial hair.

Item: If you shave your beard during playoffs, then your team will be knocked out of the playoffs.

Transcript: “One superstition we have, and so does every other team in hockey, both college and professional, is that when the playoffs come around, you can’t shave your beard. It’s called a playoff beard and if you shave it then your team will be knocked out of the playoffs. I’ve been participating in this superstition before I even came to Dartmouth, when I was first able to grow facial hair.”

Informant’s Comments:

• “I’m not really sure how or when it originated, but it has been around for a very long time and is a big part of professional hockey.”

Collector’s Comments:

• This is an interesting superstition because not only is the whole team involved, but the entire sport of hockey seems to be involved in it.

Collector’s Name: Drew Clutterbuck

Tags/Keywords:

• Superstition
• American
• Hockey
• Beard
• Dartmouth
• NHL