Meet the face of victory.
Diehard Rangers fanatics are growing their facial hair until the team is knocked out of postseason play or wins the Stanley Cup, in keeping with NHL tradition.
And to their relief — and the chagrin of Gillette — the Broadway Blueshirts crawled out of a 3-games-to-1 deficit this weekend to tie up the series against the Washington Capitals. The Rangers will take on the Caps Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden.
A win will advance them to the semifinals — and their razor-shunning fans into ZZ Top territory.
“My beard shows my allegiance to the team, the sport and the culture,” says Daniel Jay, 39, a creative director for a health care advertising agency.
Both superstitious fans and players take part in the hirsute pursuit — started by the New York Islanders in the 1980s, when the team won four championships.
Some are even raising cash for their favorite charities via the league’s official “Beard-a-thon” site.
Regardless of motivation, the aim is the same — doing their bearded best to win the Stanley Cup.
Well-conditioned
Jerry Calcagnile keeps his beard neat and trimmed during the rest of the year, but come hockey season, he lets it run wild until his team is off the ice for good.
“My mother hates it, my grandmother hates it — but I love it,” says the 34-year-old construction consultant, who’s also superstitious with his game-day apparel, refusing to wash his shirt when the Rangers win.
“If they lose, I will wash the shirt,” says the hirsute Howard Beach resident.
He spends the time he saves on laundry grooming his facial fuzz. His strict regimen includes washing, conditioning and combing it daily.
Calcagnile applies beard oil at night for sleeping, “to condition and treat the hair.” When he’s out, he uses pomade, which “tames the beard and keeps it from getting wild.”
Stubble trouble
Despite starting a new job at LinkedIn soon, Chris Becker isn’t even thinking about clipping a stray hair this postseason.
During last year’s Stanley Cup run, the Financial District resident, 32, checked out fan sites to see if it was acceptable to trim a playoff beard for work.
With the blessings of online forums, he hit the barber for a trim — but the Rangers lost the game that day and, eventually, the Cup to the Los Angeles Kings.
“I always kind of blame myself a little bit for taking a blade to my face,” says Becker, who works in sales. “This year I am just letting it go.”
Hair-raising antics
It may not be the lushest of beards, but Jeffrey Fortgang’s whiskers are the biggest money-earners in the league — raising $14,126 on the NHL’s “Beard-a-thon” site so far.
The Upper East Side father of three, 50, who works for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, hit up his deep-pocketed contacts to bolster his donations.
“The credit goes to my friends, because all I did was get the word out,” says Fortgang, who is raising money for MSG’s Garden of Dreams, which benefits sick and underprivileged children.
A season-ticket holder since 1992, Fortgang is so superstitious, he wears the same outfit to every game — sweatpants, one of two shirts, black sneakers and a backward hat. He sits four rows behind one of the goals at MSG and attends many of the postseason away games.
His wife, Amy, says she doesn’t mind the rough patches. “As a joke last Father’s Day, I bought him Just for Men, to dye the gray,” she says.
But Fortgang keeps maintenance simple: “I run a brush through it when it hurts,” he says, referring to the painful knots that form in his curly hair.
But nothing hurts as much as a loss.
“Last year after they lost, I was weeping as I shaved it off,” he says, adding, “I want to get to the finals and win the Cup. And I want to raise $25,000.”
Fuzzy father
Though his 11-year-old son, Lucca, is years away from sprouting his first follicle, Daniel Jay says his beard sets a good example for his son — representing his commitment to his team.
“My son is a player, too. It is a bond that can never be broken,” says the 39-year-old Union City, NJ, resident and creative director for a health care advertising agency.
“There is camaraderie. There is prestige. There is honor. There is code. Those are wonderful tenets [with which] to structure one’s life.”
Jay’s beard, which he has been growing since the preseason, even made the Jumbotron at MSG recently.
As for the cash he’s saving by not buying razors?
“I probably spend the money on beard oil and beard combs,” he says. “There is a whole beard subculture now. Plus, this thing gets really itchy.”
Saves, not shaves
Ryan McKelvey’s bushy beard grew out of solidarity with “King” Henrik Lundqvist and the soaring Blueshirts.
“I started growing it when the King got hurt and the Rangers started to climb the standings,” says the 30-year-old Levittown, LI, resident, who works for the Department of Homeland Security at JFK.
“I felt like I shouldn’t shave it because they were playing so great. It’s been about five months now, and I’m not shaving it till the Rangers win the Stanley Cup or lose.”
And he insists his girlfriend loves his facial hair.
“I’ve heard you are not supposed to shampoo a beard,” he explains. “I use a triple-moisturizing conditioner every day and Grave Before Shave beard balm to [make] it look shiny and smell good.”
— Additional reporting by Tim Donnelly