One of the biggest trends in sports these days is the playoff beard. What could be more brofessional than a band of brothers letting their face-manes blossom for the sake of team unity? Sure, it can get a little savage, but if history had forked off in another direction it could’ve been a whole lot wilder.

The playoff beard tradition is credited to the 1980 Stanley Cup-winning New York Islanders, but in fact it dates back to the Isles’ 1974-’75 squad, the first to make the playoffs in the expansion franchise’s history. Though that team didn’t win the Cup, they did become only the 2nd team in pro sports history to win a 7-game series after being down 3-0. Was it the beards? Perhaps. But some might argue it was the elephant dung.

In the first round, the Islanders faced the Rangers, the same week that the circus was in town at MSG. A friend of the Islanders’ Billy Harris collected some elephant dung from the Garden and gave it to the trainers. The team carried the dung around for good luck, and it carried them all the way to the conference finals, where they lost in 7 to the Flyers.

When the Isles made the playoffs again the next season, the beards came back. The dung, however, was flushed down the pipes of history.