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Hugh O’Neill’s beard might be the CFL’s best, but he’s too polite to say it tops Gord Hinse’s
B.C. Lions' Canadian kicker/punter Hugh O'Neill seems likely to keep performing punts, kickoffs and field goals for the Lions in their rematch against the Edmonton Eskimos Saturday, as 43-year-old veteran Paul McCallum is still recovering from a groin injury. That might not be the greatest possible news for Lions' fans given McCallum's superior accuracy on field goals, but it's excellent news for fans of ridiculous beards. McCallum remaining unavailable means the 23-year-old O'Neill will get more screen time Saturday, and that means more closeups of his remarkable beard, which he grew all offseason long and has maintained so far. In fact, even prominently-bearded Eskimos' lineman Gord Hinse (who was O'Neill's teammate at the University of Alberta and had more of a beard than the kicker at that time) has expressed his admiration for his adversary's facial hair, as relayed by and Chris O'Leary of The Edmonton Journal:
“It looks…not right when his helmet is on,” Hinse said of O’Neill’s scruff. “But it’s coming in nicely.”
Hinse said O’Neill has gone seven months without a shave and that he was surpassed by him at some point in the off-season.
“I shave it, trim it down every once in a while,” he said. “(O’Neill) just didn’t do that. He just kept surging forward. I’ve got a lot of respect for him for that.
“That thing is unreal. It’s amazing. I’m speechless when I look at it, it’s that grandiose.”
For his part, though, and in very stereotypically polite Canadian fashion, O'Neill told the Journal's Evan Daum he sees plenty to admire in Hinse's beard:
“I say we both have singular characteristics that we both bring to the beard world and I think we’re both happy to have them. ... Nothing is set there (for a beard competition). I think we’re both just going to keep positive and keep encouraging each other.”
Even McCallum has spoken somewhat admiringly of O'Neill's bearded perseverance, as evidenced by what he told Mike Beamish during training camp:
"We’ve got Uncle Si (from Duck Dynasty) on our team this year. ... My first thought was, ‘What’s he thinking?’” I don’t know why he’s done it. But, whatever. It’s something different."
O'Neill is likely leading the CFL's beard competition, even if he won't admit it. He's doing well on the kicking front too, but hasn't quite completely stolen McCallum's job yet. While he's shown promise as an okay substitute for McCallum over the last few weeks and will likely keep the punts and kickoffs role once the veteran returns, he isn't all that proven on field goals yet (he has five career attempts, all coming this year, and has made four of them), while McCallum holds the CFL's all-time record for consecutive field goals made, recorded one of the best kicking seasons ever in 2011 and hit 84.6 per cent of his field goals last year. There's a reason the Lions still want their 43-year-old kicker around. However, O'Neill is well ahead on the facial hair front, and the news that he'll likely handle all three roles this week should give his beard even more time on camera. That might just help establish it as the CFL's best to a point where he can't deny it.