Today while trying to shave off the poor-excuse for facial hair that I have with a mediocre electric razor, three things happened.

First, I felt pity for myself for being unable to grow anything that resembles a beard or a mustache. And second, Norelco sucks and couldn’t cut it. Literally. But thirdly, I thought of my favorite part of hockey in the spring – the playoff beard.

This mystical creature used to only be seen twice a year, during the Frozen Four and the Stanley Cup playoffs. Sometimes this can be extended to high school hockey, but that all depends on how many times players repeated 10th grade.

But now scraggly bastards roam the sidelines and dugouts of every sport. The 2004 Red Sox stole this tactic, which had been sacred to hockey and hunting for thousands of years. Johnny Damon started this and then Kyle Orton showed up a couple years back with a dead animal around his neck.

But this trend goes well beyond sports. Look at the least sporty people at NU – the indie-rock crowd. With their skinny jeans and ironic ties, they now rock the ironic mustache and beard. Seriously, it’s not ironic when everyone has one, not to mention you look like a homeless 12-year-old. Jake Plummer and Colin Farrell can grow porn-staches, but for the love of God, take off those Wayfarers and shave off that Mexistash. You are not cool.

The worst part of the ironic facial hair trend is that there are now copy-cats in sports trying to pull this thing to a new level.

Take Chase Daniel (and his family, that plug brought to you by the good folks at ESPN), the scourge du jour at Northwestern. For whatever reason he decided he wanted to look like Ben Roethlisberger while patrolling the Missouri sidelines as his kicker and special teams players saved his butt. But beard look-alikes? Come on Chase, this is worse beard plagiarism than James Garfield on Rutherford Hayes. And guess who got capped?

While I would love beards to make a comeback in the political sphere (President Obama with a handle-bar ‘tache?), please don’t let athletes become role models on this.

There is a reason that hockey and Barry Melrose have kept the Mullet, with the rare exception of the Vikings’ Jared Allen.

I understand that playoff beards are all the rage. I know. I try to grow a finals beard and fail miserably every quarter. But do they work in sports not named hockey?

For one, the clean-cut Yankees haven’t one a title since 2000, and the unbearded C.J. Bachér failed to lead NU to its first bowl game since 1949? Coincidence? I think not.

But the problem is that a full beard in other sports doesn’t help, in fact it is over-the-top. As what a certain character describes what not to do in Tropic Thunder, don’t go full-beard.

So for this week, which quarterback will lead his team to the Super Bowl? Well, it sure won’t be the Ravens, save Mr. Flacco grabbing a fake beard for the game.

But seriously, stop it with the ironic facial hair. Unless you are on the NU men’s basketball team. Then it isn’t irony. It’s desperation.

Reach Brian at [email protected]