Do blonds have more fun?
Lucic, Rinaldo about to find out after changing their hair colour on a whim
The Calgary Flames have been switching up their normal pregame routines of late, ditching their helmets during warm-ups and letting their hair down.
It’s an old-school throwback of sorts — and Milan Lucic and Zac Rinaldo took it even further back.
On a whim, the two decided to bleach their hair blond which was first visible during warm-ups on New Year’s Eve ahead of the Flames’ clash against the Chicago
Blackhawks at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
“We were in the room and there were like six of us,” Rinaldo said Thursday after the team’s morning skate. “Looch was like, ‘What would you guys do if I dyed my hair blond?’ No one responded, and I was like, ‘F--- it, I’ll do it with you.’” Then one thing led to another … “He texted me a picture of the dye box at, like, 7 p.m.,” Rinaldo said. “So, I was like, ‘All right,’ and went out and bought it. We were sending pics back and forth.
“The next morning, both of us were bleach blond.”
Not long ago, bleach blond was on trend and it’s not uncommon to see entire teams — junior teams, especially — band together and bleach their hair as a group.
While Lucic was not available to the media Thursday, Rinaldo said both of them used to rock the look regularly when they were younger.
“I grew up like this,” Rinaldo said. “That was the style back in, like, the late ’90s and the early 2000s. So this is not new to me at all. Looch, too. He’s done it multiple times.”
The Flames were also sporting some new looks at Thursday’s morning skate, tweaking the lines and placing Sam Bennett on the left side with Mikael Backlund at centre and Michael Frolik, who was traded later in the day, at right wing. Dillon Dube was on the right side, reuniting with Derek Ryan and Milan Lucic. The only line that looked the same (at the start of Tuesday’s game, at least) was Matthew Tkachuk, Elias Lindholm and Andrew Mangiapane.
Rinaldo, it appeared, was set to be a healthy scratch against the Rangers after playing in Tuesday’s 5-3 loss to the Blackhawks.
As for his hair, it was about time for a change.
“Why not?” Rinaldo said. “I’m all about the idea of trying it out. I just don’t want to be the lone soldier, ya know. So, it was nice that Looch took initiative and I followed suit.”
They couldn’t convince anyone else to do it, however.