Tim O'Brien owned up to it.
After practice Tuesday, he admitted he probably has the worst playoff beard on the Penn State Icers.
"I'll take the cake for the worst beard," O'Brien said. "It's not even a beard. I had a two-week jump, I think, on these guys, and [John] Conte's five-o-clock shadow is better than my three-week beard."
O'Brien doesn't have a beard as much as he has faded playoff sideburns, but he's trying to join the beard movement, which the players say is a sign of team unity heading into nationals this weekend.
"It's a very close team, and that's something that you can't coach or can't recruit," Penn State coach Scott Balboni said. "It's a nice situation to be able to have that. They'll go to war and go to bat for each other, and that goes a long way."
In preparation for the ACHA national tournament, the team decided a couple weeks ago to engage in the popular postseason hockey tradition. The team also decided not to get haircuts.
It became so popular that the coaches decided to join in and are also growing beards.
Balboni has a noticeable shadow accompanying his normal goatee.
Freshmen such as Dominic Morrone and Dan Ivanir have also started growing beards, a sign that a team that entered the season with 13 new players has grown pretty close. O'Brien said it might be the closest team he's ever been on.
"Most of the guys live right next to each other," Marek Polidor said. "You see these guys every day, so it's just natural that you start to bond and go on the road all the time and being together all the time."
O'Brien said he doesn't remember who started the playoff beard trend on the Icers, though Polidor said it might have been Conte. While O'Brien said he might have the worst, he, Polidor and Balboni all said Conte had the best beard on the team.
"I'll go with Conte, but [forward Nick] Seravalli's got the best mustache," Polidor said.
"He's got the best 'stache going right now."
