Hockey Hair: A Tribute To The Salad Skate (2024)

The warm up, it’s an age old hockey tradition. At the professional level the warm-up was, until recently, primarily skated without the use of a helmet. It seems every year, more helmets find their way onto the heads of our favorite NHL players, ruining the proud tradition of the Salad Skate. We all know that hockey players love to let their feathers fly above all else, hence the saying “hockey hair”. We’ll refer to Urban Dictionary for the uninitiated :

Salad Skate : To skate without a helmet (most likely in warmup or practice) with the sole purpose of showing off your sick hockey flow (or salad). In the tight knit hockey world, letting your locks flow is a sacred hockey player ritual – a rite of passage for the true hockey beauty.

Although they’re not always given credit where credit is due, hockey players played a major role in the commercialization of the mullet. Second only to the campaign led by professional wrestlers through the 1980’s and early 90’s. From long flowing locks to a bouncing red fro, a well quaffed slick, hardened gelmet, or greasy mop, to the douchebag inspired faux hawk; hockey players have always known how to rock the lid.

There’s no better platform to show off that perfect style or sweaty abomination while eyeballing some pretty ladies in the crowd than during the warm up. Here is our tribute to the salad skate in honor of the return of the NHL to the ice this evening!