Editor's note: As the Admirals work their way through the Calder Cup Playoffs, select players, coaches, announcers and team officials will be filing periodic diaries for OnMilwaukee.com. This installment is from defenseman Sheldon Brookbank:

We play Chicago in the first round in the playoffs and we have beaten them every time down there and only beat them once here in Milwaukee. I'm not sure how that figures into the whole series. I guess maybe the teams play better out of their home environment while the pressure is on you. We're two different teams. They're more of a skilled offensive-minded team and we're more of a grind-'em-out defensive minded team with good goaltending. So, we are two very contrasting teams in terms of how we play, but it's going to be an interesting matchup.

There has been a whole week between the end of the season and the start of the playoff series, so to get ready we're just going over some of the systems we play and systems that Chicago plays. We're also watching some videos of our games against them and preparing mentally for everything that comes with the playoffs. A few of us have been there before and Claude has had some success and he's just trying to help prepare us for the playoff run.

One of the popular hockey playoff superstitions is the beard. I can't grow a full beard. I can grow a nice mustache and a little goatee, sort of, but there might be some Just for Men involved in that. But as far as the worst beard, I'm pretty sure it's going to have to be either Ville Koistinen or Cal O'Reilly. It's going to be a battle for the worst facial hair. The best facial hair is probably going to be a guy like Kim Staal or maybe Jason Guerriero. I see those guys having good beards. They're pretty furry guys.

Today, Guerriero came in with his hair shaved off on the sides, but still long on the top. I guess he's claiming that for a playoff thing. I think that's something him and his girlfriend whipped up last night. I don't really know anything about it. I'm not sure if anyone's going to follow suit with that or not. I think he and Kelsey Wilson talked about it and Wilson said he was going to follow in Guerriero's footsteps and do that, too.