The Foltice Family Blog: NHL Playoffs

You can take me out of Michigan, but you can't take the Michigan out of me. That means, when hockey playoffs start and you are from Michigan, you stop what you are doing and watch the Detroit Red Wings playoff hockey games. I normally don't even watch the regular season games, but once the playoffs come, I alter my schedule around games and it's all I can talk about. When the Red Wings get eliminated, you can go back to normal life.

This playoff season has been really difficult to watch games as we are 6 hours ahead of Detroit, making a 8 pm start time, a 2 am start time in Germany. We missed games 1-3 of the first round while we were in Berlin, so in order to still support the team, I started to grow a 'playoff beard' starting at the beginning of the playoffs (starting on April 13th.)

Playoff beards have become quite common in the NHL, you can see the 10 most fascinating NHL playoff beards of 2011, where the players are not allowed to shave their beards until they are eliminated from the playoffs. I learned on Wikipedia that you can trim your beard if you need a change of luck. I trimmed my beard when we lost 2 in a row to the San Jose Sharks. It was just in time for a presentation I needed to make at the University.

In previous years, I have only grown a partial beard for the playoffs. Translation: my beard was so pathetic and patchy that I would shave it after a week just to save the embarrassment. This years version is still not a very good looking beard, but I have pressed on with it. I was really excited that someone at the playground asked me a couple of weeks ago if I was Turkish. That was all I needed to go on with the beard (that, and Dana being gone.)

Currently, Detroit is tied with San Jose 3 games to 3 and play the deciding Game 7 tonight (or tomorrow morning at 3am, depending on where you live.) They are looking to become the 4th team in NHL history to come back from being down 3 games to 0. I am setting my alarm to watch it.

Oh yeah, and this is my uneventful week 1 update from Germany while Dana and Dylan are gone. I haven't done anything else noteworthy. Hopefully, my Week 2 update will be more eventful.

We are Hockey Town, No Limits! Taken before Dana and Dylan left.

Dylan was born during the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals, we watched Game 6 together in the hospital.

Playoffs 2010. We have gotten good mileage out of this jersey, though it will need to be retired after this season. Thanks for the awesome baby gift, Amy and Rob.