by Justin Orlewicz (Sports Editor)
Email: cascade.sports@ufv.ca
With Movember over now, I figured what better time than to devote an entire Locker Room piece to the mustache, the cookie duster, the handle bars and the list goes on. The mustache used to be very common among NHL hockey players and professional athletes, but now it serves a much greater cause in the NHL. The month of November has officially been dubbed “Movember” in honor of men’s prostate cancer. Players are growing mustaches for donations or because they have been touched by cancer or simply because this is the one time they can get away with growing a mustache and not get ridiculed by the rest of the team.
Let’s face it, not everyone can pull off the cookie duster look: not everyone can be Tom Sellek. Although some do it very well, I myself decided to grow a mustache for the month of Movember, and I stayed committed the whole way through, as did some of my other beer league team mates. Ladd you and your younger brothers look great! I grew mine because I lost my father to cancer and my uncle, my benefactor, my ex room mate, and one of my best friends was a prostate cancer survivor, so for those of you who had to put up with it, I am sorry, but it was for a good cause, and I will be sure to make a donation as all men should (especially if you didn’t grow one).
Prostate cancer aside, I would like to commit the last bit of my weekly rant to a more positive side of the handle bars and talk about some of the greatest mustaches the NHL has ever seen – past and present. So here it is folks, my top 10 NHL cookie dusters of all time list. At number ten we have a member of the NHL that isn’t quite a player but without him the game wouldn’t have gone on and the fans wouldn’t have booed: at number ten we have referee Bill McCreary. Number nine would have to go to Eddie Shack; he wasn’t from my era, but his Duster was a beauty. At number eight we have Bill Clement; Clement was part of the mid 1970‘s Broad Street Bully’s Philadelphia Flyers team that won two Stanley Cups. At number seven we have Dave Babych; Babych was a fierce defenseman that went to the finals with the Canucks in 1994. Number six goes to George Perros of the Anaheim Ducks; Perros (a Harvard grad) is now one of the fiercest fighters in the League today – the stache gives him super strength.
Wendel Clark, the beloved Maple Leafs captain, comes in at the fifth spot with one of the baddest mustaches to ever wear the blue and white maple leaf. The number four spot goes to the late Pat Burns; Burns used to be a cop, and he acted and looked like one behind the bench for many years in the show – RIP. Harold Snepsts gets the number three spot, because his stache was so badass, and he was a Canuck. The number two spot goes to none other than Dave “the Hammer” Schultz; Schultz was also part of the mid seventies Broad Street Bullies and was their main enforcer, but he could also score; he had one 20 goal season and won two Stanley Cups; he even had his own song. Too bad he couldn’t sing, otherwise he would have been a triple threat. The number one position goes to whom else but Lanny McDonald, by far the most famous mustache to ever skate in the NHL, and who could forget that picture of him hoisting the Stanley Cup with the biggest Handle Bars ever on skates when those hated Flames won their only cup in 1989? Movember it’s been a blast; until next season.
