The ‘Archaeologist of Hockey Hair' Checks In

New York Times

07-03-2025

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.
We caught up with Mr. King this week between tournament games at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., where he was searching for potential talent to include in this year's video.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Are you seeing any good hair at this year's tournament?
Oh, yeah, there's always good hair. It's the year of Bob Dylan, and Hibbing [a team from Mr. Dylan's hometown] is in the tournament. These guys look like a glam-rock band from the '80s. It's unbelievable.
How would you describe good hockey hair?
It's long. There's enough to come out the back of the helmet. There's probably some of it coming out the side of the helmet. And it's long enough that you have to push it back a lot when you throw your helmet on. It's such a classic look. It's what everyone looked like in the movie 'Miracle.'
How did your annual hockey hair montage get its start?
In 2005, I was a writer for a TV show here in Minnesota called 'The Show To Be Named Later.' It was on in the middle of the night, so you either had to be drunk or maybe immobile to have seen it. And by 'writer' I mean that I wasn't paid anything; I just sent ideas in. And I pitched this idea to do the top 10 hair from the tournament. They put it on television. No one really saw it. And then, in 2011, I did it again when YouTube was kind of happening. My kids were both playing, and I sent the video out to a couple of group texts. The next morning, it had 10,000 views and it's been rolling since.
What were your expectations when you posted the first video on YouTube?
I always knew that the building where they play the games holds 18,000 people. So I kind of figured that 100,000 people care about the tournament. I sent a bunch of letters to sponsors and said, 'If this gets 10,000 views, pay me $2,500 and I'll put your logo in it.' Nobody wrote me back. At the time, the woman who still cuts my hair was working at a place called Hair Matters. So I put her number in there, and she got a bunch of weird phone calls.
Why do you think the videos have become popular?
Hockey in Minnesota is really different. These kids play with their friends from mites to high school. There are 100 hockey towns in Minnesota. So it's not really about the video; it's shining a spotlight on a thing that people already love. It's unique. This is like football in Texas or basketball in Indiana. Nobody does hockey like Minnesota.
What's your process for evaluating potential members of the team?
I guess I'm a purist. I actually like good hockey hair. There's a lot of really crazy stuff now, and I'll put that in there. But I'm actually looking for the best hockey hair. Bleach is a trend, and it makes it way harder, because you can't really tell who has good hair when it's all bleached and it all looks the same.
Have you noticed any new trends at this year's tournament?
Well, we had a guy slap himself. I've never seen that before.
He slapped himself?
He hit himself in the face twice during player introductions.
Any hair-related trends?
You got some weird stuff where guys are shaving the tops of their heads and leaving the sides long. But I think this year we're coming back to authentic, old-school hockey hair.
How do you put the video together?
I make it in my basement on iMovie. I used to wait until the end of the tournament to put it all together, and I had a few pretty dicey nights, but now I really try to chip away. I clip things that I might use, and I probably end up with about 20 minutes of footage that I try to cut down to seven or eight minutes. Nowadays, with TikTok, people don't like to watch anything that goes longer that a minute. But I like longform. I'm older, right? I like to be able to tell a story. And I don't put it out until the tournament's done because I like to have the context of what actually happened and add a little highlight reel at the end. It's a time capsule: This is the 2025 state high school hockey tournament.
Do you feel any sense of personal responsibility for helping to keep hockey hair alive?
No, not at all. Hockey players are going to do what hockey players do. They're cowboys. If anything, I just want to showcase this great tournament and raise some money for the Hendrickson Foundation, because the hockey players are the stars.
Do you have hockey hair?
I have good hair, yes. I don't feel bad saying that, especially for a 50-year-old. I'm hanging in there.