ST. LOUIS - This playoff season, Blues fans can participate in the NHL Playoffs like never before. The St. Louis Blues Beard-a-thon is an opportunity for fans to grow their own playoff beard and raise money for charity. Proceeds from the 2012 St. Louis Blues Beard-a-thon will benefit the St. Louis Blues 14 Fund and Joshua Chamberlain Society.

Participants in the Blues Beard-a-thon can invite family, friends, and business associates to pledge their playoff beards. By joining the Blues Beard-a-thon, fans pledge to maintain their beard as long as the Blues remain in the playoffs. Fans who are unwilling, or unable, to grow playoffs beards can also pledge their favorite Blues player. For more information or to enroll in the Blues Beard-a-thon, please log onto www.beardathon.com/blues.

“Blues fans have always shown their passion for the team. Now, they have a chance to participate in a great hockey tradition and raise money for a great cause, ” stated Mike McCarthy, CEO, Blues/Peabody Opera House. The Blues and the Blues 14 Fund are proud to support the Joshua Chamberlain Society (JCS) through the Beard-a-thon program. The Joshua Chamberlain Society is a local organization that provides support to veterans in our area that have sustained permanent combat injuries.

All donations to the St. Louis Blues Beard-a-thon are tax deductible.

About the Playoff Beard
A playoff beard is the superstitious practice of a National Hockey League player not shaving his beard during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The player stops shaving when his team enters the Playoffs and does not shave until his team is eliminated or wins the Stanley Cup. It is believed that the tradition was started in the 1980s by the four-time Stanley Cup Champion New York Islanders. In recent years, other sports and other players have claimed the playoff beard tradition, but it is a hockey, and always will be, a hockey tradition.

About St. Louis Blues 14 Fund & Joshua Chamberlain Society
The St. Louis Blues 14 Fund, the charitable trust of the St. Louis Blues, is proud to support the Joshua Chamberlain Society through the Beard-A-thon program. The St. Louis Blues 14 Fund was created in 1998 to honor former Blues player Doug Wickenheiser,  No. 14, who passed away from a long battle with cancer in early 1999. The Blues 14 Fund focuses on four areas of giving, which include cancer care and awareness, health and wellness, education and youth hockey development. Thanks to the members of the Blues family, including our fans, community partners, players, alumni and staff, the St. Louis Blues 14 Fund has contributed more than $2.5 million to the St. Louis community.

The Joshua Chamberlain Society ("JCS") is a grass roots, St. Louis-based charity that was formed with the mission of providing long term support to veterans from the greater St. Louis area that have sustained permanent combat injuries fighting for our nation. It also provides long term support to the children of local veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice in service. The unique mission of JCS is that it adopts, in the truest meaning of that word, veterans or the family of deceased veterans, and commits to provide support for the long term. Five, ten and 20 years after the serviceman or woman has suffered grievous and permanent injuries, the veteran or his family will know that the citizens of St. Louis still honor and recognize their enormous sacrifice for our freedoms. As their injuries or death is permanent, so is the support that JCS provides. This support is multi-faceted and comes in the form of gifts, tuition assistance, monetary donations, and the like--anything that JCS identifies as something that will improve the quality of life for these heroic Americans.