Taking A Look Into The Roope Hintz Hair Curse Theory

August is ending, the season starts in October, Jason Robertson and Jake Oettinger still haven’t signed, and boredom has crept in. It’s the perfect time to unpack the Roope Hintz hair curse theory.

For the blissfully unenlightened, there is a running joke among Stars fans that when Roope Hintz cuts his hair, he loses the ability to score. Think of him as a Finnish hockey Samson, if you will. The hair curse has even been talked about on the broadcast. But is there some truth to the joke? I went down the statistical rabbit hole to find out.

Hintz’s production will be examined under two categories: the first eleven games of the season and the second eleven games of the season. This will take into account his production right after his haircut and after it started growing back.

Roope Hintz: The First Cut

Hintz has had a distinct flow that often captures people’s attention. His pigtails made several appearances during the 2020-2021 pandemic shortened season where he performed outstandingly, even with being a game-time decision for much of the season.

So, when Hintz first said goodbye to his golden locks in June 2021 it sent hockey twitter into a tizzy. General exclamations of shock and horror permeated the space and when the dust settled, most fans just had one question: why?

At training camp Hintz laughingly said that he would grow it back. But before that could happen, disaster struck. [And yes, fun nonsensical topics such as these require nonsensical words to exaggerate emotion].

Through the first eleven games of the season, the Stars won four games and lost seven of them. Hintz scored zero goals, had only two assists, and had a goal differential of minus five.

Granted, he was coming off of an offseason surgery to repair a tendon in his groin area. But seeing him struggle to score after a season where he was over a point a game certainly looked frustrating for him. He was truly coming into his own and was a shining point during that shortened season filled with injuries.

The quite dismal record through those eleven games were not fun for fans either, thus the curse was born. Razor explained it on the Bally Sports Southwest broadcast quite succinctly, saying “there’s some suggestions around here that Roope shouldn’t have cut his hair. Maybe that’s why the puck isn’t going in for him in the opening couple of weeks.”

Roope Hintz Regrowth

After implementing the (not) very scientific process of searching Getty Images and squinting at game clips, it can be said that his hair grew a smidge over the course of those first 11 games. Over the next eleven games (games 12-22), the Stars won nine and lost two of them.

Hintz propelled the team with eleven goals, three assists, and a goal differential of plus eleven. Three of his goals were game winners. This was a complete turnaround from the first stretch of the season and felt like the powerful Roope Hintz that emerged the previous season.

Coincidence? Or do his blonde locks have powers better than Rapunzel? Given that he has once again cut his hair, this time completely buzzing it, the hair curse discourse and jokes will run surely reappear if he has a scoring drought again.

Jokes aside for a moment, Hintz is poised to continue his upward trajectory into excellence. He ended the 2021-2022 season with 37 goals and 72 points in 80 games. It’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility to see him crack 40 goals. He is a special player and he has potentially very special hair. But to what degree remains to be seen.