Playoff Beards

Hockey players are known for their long hair, and Kevin Peel ’12 and Brian O’Neill ’12 have certainly sported some impressive flow this season. Until now, however, Ryan Rondeau ’11 has been the only Bulldog consistently sporting facial hair. But now it’s the postseason, and the playoff beards are making their appearances.

Both Broc Little ’11 and Denny Kearney ’11 appeared at a Thursday press conference with a week’s worth of stubble. Little said that many members of the team stopped shaving after their last regular season game, a win over Cornell two weeks ago.

Not all beards are created equal, and many are patchy or barely visible. Little called Kearney’s the best on the team.

“It gets curly and pretty gross,” he said, adding, “Last year, guys ended up shaving their beards off after our first series [an upset loss to Brown] because they were pissed. Hopefully this time we can keep them going a little longer.”

Head coach Keith Allain ’80 remains clean-shaven, but rumor has it that he sported an impressive mustache when he coached in Sweden in the late 1980s.

Anderson On the Mend

Jeff Anderson ’11 practiced with the team Thursday. The veteran forward has not dressed for a game since sustaining a lower body injury in the opening minute of Yale’s 3–0 over Vermont on December 8.

Allain said in a Thursday press conference not to expect Anderson back on the ice for this weekend’s quarterfinal series. He did not give any specific dates for the winger’s return, but he did suggest that Anderson would return to the lineup this season.

“He’s really doing very well,” Allain said.

The nature of Anderson’s injury has not been disclosed, but was presumed to be a broken leg.

Some Light Reading

If the dog-eared book’s place on Alain’s desk is any indication, the head coach is in the middle of Vladislav Zubok’s A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev.

The book has received nothing but 5-star reviews on Amazon.com. No word on whether it explores the relationship between Soviet governance and the national hockey team’s strategy.

Correction: March 10, 2011

An earlier version of this post misstated the class year of Kevin Peel. He is in the class of 2012, not the class of 2011.