Beards are a sign of the playoffs - among other things

It’s facial hair season.

Which seems like a fine thing, since you can see I have a beard and mustache.

So I’m all for that “look” rolling into fashion.

But what I mean here is, we’ve REALLY hit beard season now.

Sports and beards seriously hook up next month, with the beginning of the National Hockey League playoffs.

More on the ice men shortly, but apparently some pretty spectacular facial adornments are making a major comeback.

There was a time, you know, when most men of substance — Abe Lincoln, for example — sported a beard.

At various periods throughout history, it was considered a sign of strength and power.

I don’t feel all that powerful, personally, but I don’t think my beard is at fault. I had very little clout when clean-shaven, either.

There are thousands of men, however, who now feel that simply imitating someone with a beard makes you a pretty stout fellow.

Perhaps even so that the ladies might notice.

FOR INSTANCE, men all over India are adopting the rather unique — some would say bizarre — beard worn by Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman of the Indian Air Force.

The wing commander became famous for, ah, being shot down in a raid over neighboring rival Pakistan.

Once his picture was circulated around the world’s second most-populous country, Indian men flocked to have more traditional beards sculpted to imitate Varthaman’s.

To each his own.

I’m sticking with something more conventional, I suppose.

Meanwhile, back in North America, beards are a sign of the season in the NHL.

Most players simply fall into the custom of refusing to shave until their team is eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs.

We’re not far away from that bit of rough and tumble, either.

Regarding beards, you can imagine that players might get a little scruffy looking if they make it all the way to the finals — which could have taken as many as 21 games (with no back-to-backs) upon arrival.

ON THE other hand, sometimes players kind of fall for the look and never go back.

Two stars of the San Jose Sharks, Joe Thornton and Brent Burns, both let their beards grow over multiple seasons — perhaps as a show of determination to win a Stanley Cup, no matter how long it took.

The Sharks made it to the Cup finals in 2016, but lost to Pittsburgh.

Oops, there’s a whistle!!

Time out for another fun hockey tradition: No NHL player would ever, ever, ever touch the Cup itself unless he’s been on a team that won it.

They’d rather be flogged.

Anyway, back to our boys with the beards: A great player named Lanny McDonald DID win a Stanley Cup in 1989 while sporting a ferociously wild red beard and mustache that he’d cultivated over time.

In San Jose, where the Sharks seem poised for a run at Lord Stanley’s oversized flower vase this spring, Thornton has chopped off his long beard, regrown it and sometimes actually let it look stylish.

Burns, on the other hand, appears determined to look like a prophet from the Old Testament.

A serious contender for the Norris Trophy as the league’s top defenseman, Burns certainly won’t blend into the background with an apparently endless beard that needs to be hacked occasionally so as not to interfere with his vicious slap shot.

Isn’t this all terrific?

Against the odds, my mug shot may be coming back into style.

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns for The Press appear on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

He also contributes the “Zags Tracker” package on Gonzaga basketball, which will run next Thursday due to the WCC tournament. The Zags column normally is published each Tuesday, and that schedule will resume during the NCAA tournament.

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