It looked like it would be good, anyway

Game 7 between the Pen and Caps was supposed to be pretty epic, and we had a good variety of content for the top story package. Our photo editor gave me this nice illustration of Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin; unfortunately, they really weren't mentioned in the story we linked to. So I had to kind of write around that in the blurb. Incidentally, the game was pretty anticlimactic -- the Pens are up 5-1 through two periods as I write this.

Media bias!

The most interesting aspect of the Craig Custance story previewing a Caps-Pens game was that he openly admitted he would be cheering for one of the teams, which ordinarily would be considered pretty unprofessional for a journalist. So I wanted to grab readers' attention by including the admission in the blurb and inviting them to read his justification (which was a good one, by the way).

Last call for clean-shaven hockey players

I wanted a top story headline that would remind readers the playoffs were starting without saying something boring, like "Playoff preview." "Begin those beards" refers to the playoff beards players grow until their team is eliminated. It's also alliterative, which makes me merry. The blurb is fairly straightforward.