The ‘Archaeologist of Hockey Hair’ Checks In
The New York Times
Minnesota’s high school hockey tournament is a fashion show of mullets, perms and bleach. With his “All Hockey Hair Team,” John King chronicles the lettuce and flow.
Once the Minnesota boys’ high school state hockey tournament wraps up on Saturday, John King will retreat to his basement in White Bear Lake, Minn., so he can pore through footage of mullets, bleached mops and caterpillarlike mustaches.
The resulting video montage — his “All Hockey Hair Team” — will be released on YouTube this weekend, taking its annual place as a cultural touchstone in Minnesota and beyond. Without a whiff of irony, it will pay tribute to the “lettuce,” “ramen” and all-around “flow” that players show off during their introductions, helping the tournament become a phenomenon on social media and beyond.
A self-described “archaeologist of hockey hair” and former advertising executive, Mr. King, 50, is one of the founders of Pulltab Sports, a sports and entertainment site that he says has a “flyover state of mind.”
“We try to take stuff in the Midwest that gets overlooked and make it a big deal,” Mr. King said. “The hockey hair would be a good example of that.”
His videos, which he has assembled every year since 2011, have become so popular that they now have a presenting sponsor — Duke Cannon, a Minnesota-based company that makes men’s grooming products. The videos also serve as a fund-raising vehicle for the Hendrickson Foundation, which seeks to make hockey more accessible to people with disabilities.
