There are so many things to love about the game of hockey. The blistering speed, the bone-jarring body checks, and the mind-meltingly dirty dangles, not to mention the fact that these athletes are literally flying around on a frozen pond with metal blades strapped to their feet, together make for some of the most purely entertaining content in the wide world of sports.
An often overlooked and underappreciated, yet integral aspect of hockey culture is the propensity for hockey players to sport some of the most impressive heads of hair in the history of mankind. This trend was brought into the national spotlight by John King, a Minneapolis ad man who in 2011 created the first of the ‘Minnesota State High School All Hockey Hair Team’ videos.
King’s videos highlight the hairstyles of high school hockey players participating in the annual state championship tournament, almost all excessive in length and exceptional in nature. In 2016, popular hockey TV analyst Barry Melrose hosted an ESPN E:60 special, ‘Minneflowta: A Hockey Hair Chronicle’, covering the same phenomenon and further lending to hockey hair’s growing lore.
Although Minnesota, known as ‘the State of Hockey’, is America’s hockey hotbed and thus predictably features some of the sport’s best hair, there are so many more magnificent mops out there which deserve recognition of their own. For instance, one might be tempted to look to the long locks of silky-smooth-skating Swedes like Erik Karlsson, and deservedly so, although Americans would do well to recognize the bounty of outstanding, home-grown cabbage in their own collegiate sports system.
With that, I introduce you to the first installment of Student Union’s ‘NCAA Hockey Hair Team’, through which we will pay tribute to the best heads of lettuce in college hockey. We will take a deep dive into each of the NCAA’s Division 1 men’s hockey conferences, one at a time, beginning today with the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA).
Jake Lucchini – Michigan Tech Huskies – Senior (F)
The luscious locks tumbling down the sides of this guy’s melon look like something out of a Garnier Fructis commercial. Copious amounts of curls make for a magnitudinous mane, and with one like this it was inevitable that the Huskies’ captain and leading point scorer ended up on our list.
Jake Jackson – Michigan Tech Huskies – Senior (F)
Jake Jackson is one wild dude. I don’t say that because I know the guy, but with a head of hair like his, there is no way this man isn’t a legend on the Michigan Tech campus. Need to know the moves for Saturday night? Talk to Jake. Who’s that up on the table at the bar? Gotta be Jake. Who just dummied three separate dudes in one shift? Jake, of course, who else?
Frédéric Létourneau – Bowling Green Falcons – Junior (F)
Did this dude just roll out of bed? Or did he spend hours in front of the mirror, arranging and rearranging his cabbage patch to the point of perfection? This is one of those cases where it’s tough to tell, but regardless, my guy looks like he belongs on the ice.
Roni Salmenkangas – Ferris State Bulldogs – Freshman (G)
This freshman netminder from Finland has got some FLOW, bro. Cascading down and around his head and shoulders like a mighty Amazonian waterfall, Salmenkangas’ (killer moniker, by the way) hair is a force to be reckoned with. You’ve gotta think a mane like this accounts for at least a few extra saves per game on its own.
Caleb Hite – Alaska Fairbanks Nanooks – Freshman (F)
Wings like these belong on an eagle or an albatross, soaring through the evening sky and off into the sunset. A sight to behold, reminding those of us below to take a second and appreciate all of the natural beauty that life has to offer.
Seriously, though, this Michigan native has some well-coiffed lettuce, practically built for a puck bucket.
Ryan Black – Northern Michigan Wildcats – Senior (D)
Look at the mane on this man. Slicked back smooth and even, with just the right amount of fluff all around. There is no way this guy’s hair stays like this without applying some sort of product, but it doesn’t matter because it’s working for him. I’m guessing we wouldn’t want to see this dude’s mop after an extended nap, though.
James Vermeulen – Northern Michigan Wildcats – Senior (D)
Cut Vermeulen’s picture in half right at his eyebrows and it looks like he’s got two completely different hairstyles. Pretty wild, but impossible to deny that the second Wildcat on our list has some sweet salad, perhaps sweet enough to rival that of the other Northern Michigan defender on our list.
Connor Wood – Alabama Huntsville Chargers – Sophomore (F)
Ever seen Fast Times at Ridgemont High? If not, chances are you probably wouldn’t be reading this article in the first place, but either way my man right here looks a whole lot like Jeff Spicoli, maybe the greatest character in the history of cinema.
The Odessa Jackalopes (Jackalopes, what a time to be alive) product has admittedly adopted the signature hockey pushback above his forehead rather than the Sean Penn middle part, but regardless, the resemblance is uncanny.
Bottom line: this dude has got a MAJOR mop atop his brain bucket, and in my humble opinion, takes the cake for the WCHA in a landslide.