It is hockey's secret crisis.

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Ryan Smyth.

Photograph by : Getty Images

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A subject few NHL players want to discuss publicly, but many fret about privately.

They try to hide it. Cover it up. But if they have it, they know that eventually they will be found out.

No, not HGH, silly. MPB! Male Pattern Baldness.

In today's NHL, the feathers are flying faster than the fists.

Players 21 years of age are already looking like Messier. And I'm not talking about their leadership abilities. Many young hockey heads are in the midst of a full-scale recession.

I'm not going to name names. This isn't the Mitchell Report. I don't foresee any Congressional Hearings on this matter.

Indiana Congressman Dan Burton: "We have sworn affidavits that you were wearing a ball cap at the team party in the summer of 2006? What were you hiding?''

Balding Player: "Uhh ... nothing sir. It was sunny out.''

Congressman: "Lies! The party was inside! There was no need for cranial protection! Show us the top of your head, son! Showwww Ussssss!''

Besides, you see the post-game interviews. You can tell which scalps are playing shorthanded. Sure, a percentage of all young men lose their locks early. But this is an epidemic.

"The numbers (of balding hockey players) must be way above the norm,'' says player agent J.P Barry, himself a proud member card-carrying member of the hair-impaired.

"There are a ton of balding guys in hockey,'' says Ottawa native Matthew Barnaby, now a TSN analyst. "At least most of them now just shave their heads because there were a few guys who got those plugs, and it wasn't pretty.''

It could be some freakish statistical anomaly, something hereditary in hockey's collective lineage. Or it could be something more sinister.

The Citizen has learned (just so you know, I giggled when I wrote that) that many players believe the cause of their follicle frustrations lies ... in their helmets.

"I've definitely heard that complaint in the dressing room,'' says one NHLer. "We have one third-year guy who has lost a ton just since he came into the league. He was bitching to his equipment rep about the helmets.''

The belief is that somehow the foam interior of the helmets is literally rubbing their hair away.

"The issue hasn't been raised with me,'' says NHL Player Association executive director Paul Kelly, who wears his full head of hair in the trendy "Retro-Glen Sather'' style. "That's either because they are a little embarrassed to raise such an issue, or believe--as I do--that bald ain't so bad! Maybe we can consider asking the guys to wear full head bubbles like in the movie Apollo 13 and lay to rest the baldness and visor issue in one swoop.''

(This is why I like Paul Kelly. You just didn't get that kind of material from Saskin or Goodenow.)

Our in-depth investigation (which consisted of one Google search) led us to Robert M. Bernstein, a clinical professor of dermatology at Columbia University, and the founder of the Bernstein Center for Hair Restoration in New York. He is also a past winner of the "Platinum Follicle Award,'' which is apparently the Hart Trophy of the hair-loss world.