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How long is too long in Toronto? Well, a safe bet is to keep it shorter than head coach Mike Babcock’s, who said, “I often have the longest hair.”

In a league where San Jose’s Brent Burns and Joe Thornton went to the Stanley Cup final with ZZ Top-inspired beards, “Lou’s Rules” might seem a bit antiquated. And yet, the Leafs are hardly the only NHL team that applies them.

It’s not always about the length of a player’s hair. In the case of P.K. Subban, it’s sometimes about having too big a personality. That, more than his on-ice play, seemed to be the reason why the Montreal Canadiens traded the Norris Trophy-winning defenceman to the Nashville Predators for Shea Weber.

According to Subban, it wasn’t a hockey trade so much as it was a culture trade. Subban had reportedly had made himself bigger than the team, and in the NHL, that can be worse than putting the puck in your own net.

“When I hear these things about the music, about ‘the suits you wear and the way you talk,’ or ‘you were speaking your mind’ — I mean, we’re professionals,” Subban said in an upcoming HBO documentary, Skate Past the Noise. “As long as you perform like a professional on the ice — I mean, you look at my age, I’m just coming into my prime, I’m 27 years old, these are supposed to be the best years of my career coming.”

That Subban, who three years ago was named the best defencemen in the league, would be traded because of his colourful suits and billboard-sized personality is a bit like Mattingly being benched for having bushy sideburns. It’s laughable. But it’s hardly surprising.