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The National Brewers |
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During the summer of 1977, the National Brewing Company was merged into the Carling Brewing Company, with the new business to be known as Carling National Breweries. The Brewers’ sponsorship was continued by the new brewery, but the team’s name was changed to the Tuborg Vikings. A donation of $500 and new heavy black jerseys were provided to promote Tuborg Gold beer. Just before the season began, the Tuborg Vikings name was changed to Tuborg Brewers to keep the continuity with the Brewers’ name. The Baltimore Bruins folded and the five team CHL was now going to a 16 game regular season schedule in an effort to reduce costs. A new Chesapeake Hockey League cloth patch was created with a Baltimore outline to emphasize the location of the teams. This was truly a rebuilding year for the club and yet in many ways the most satisfying for the remaining veterans. Sam Mattingly returned as coach for his 8th and final season. Due to players like Roger Forrest and 9 season Brewer Gerry Horak moving out of town plus Steve Wirth joining the rival Blazers, the Tuborg Brewers needed to recruit 8 new players. All of the newcomers were between 16 and 18 years of age. Because of the increase in young players who were unfamiliar with the physical toughness of the CHL, the Brewers struggled for the first half of the season. The team opened with two non league blowout wins against Benfield and Mainline of Philadelphia, followed by the regular season opener, a 6-1 loss to the Mercurys. Later, an early season loss to the Columbia Flyers by 8-1 was a real rarity for the long time players, who were not accustomed to CHL losses. In early November, the beer men traveled to Charlottesville to play the Richmond Vikings to a 4-4 tie and a 6-4 loss to the University of Virginia. Several line changes were made and the Brewers had a successful second half of the season, as the kids came of age. 45 year old Jim Bartlett ended up anchoring the 4 man defense with three 17 year old rookies after Randy Mattingly suffered a broken arm in a 4-3 December loss to the Mercurys at Northwest ice rink. The Brewers were steadily improving as the year progressed, however a late season non league game versus the Essex Foxes of New Jersey struck a bad chord. The visitors came to Northwest with seven strong players plus a goalie and topped Tuborg by a 3-2 score. On the last night of the regular season, the Brewers clinched second place in the CHL, behind the strong Orchard Mercurys with a remarkable finish. The regular season record was 9-5-2, but was bolstered by a now classic second half surge. Third place went to the Baltimore Blazers followed by Columbia Flyers and Benfield Blues. Jim Bartlett finished 7 th in CHL scoring and led the Brewers with just 9 goals and 11 assists in the 16 game CHL schedule. Other top Tuborg scorers were Biff Evans, Tim Urban and Steve Bachman. Goalie Ron Olenick played 12 of the 14 games and had a 2.93 goals against average. New key players included: Ray Peloquin and rookies Tim Urban, Steve Thalheimer, Peter West, Dave Ranney, George Hutchko and Mark Staton. The rookie players were all recruits from the Baltimore Hockey Program and they played big roles as the season rolled on. Ray Peloquin was several years older and appeared at Northwest at midnight after one of our early season practices had just ended. We were hurting for bodies then and Steve Bachman heard the New England accent as Ray was talking with someone in the lobby. As we were changing out of our uniforms in the ‘dressing room’, Bachman yelled, "who is that?" Our man in the lobby replied, "new guy from New England." Bachman then loudly blurted, "Sign the sonofabitch"! It was Ray Peloquin’s first introduction to the Brewers and he became a significant contributor for many years.
The Chesapeake Hockey League playoffs would show the improvement of the Tuborg Brewers. Dave Mattingly, who had been on the roster all season, but was in college in Boston, returned to add offensive strength to the club. The Brewers topped the Blazers 3-2 in a very tough semi final game. Dave Mattingly scored just 13 seconds into the game and assisted on George Bachrach’s third period game winner. For the championship game, the team needed to focus on a strategy to compete with the heavily favored Orchard Mercurys. The Merc’s defense played a stand up style at the blue line and when they could, even played stand up at the center ice red line. They had allowed very few goals in the regular season’s 14 games, due to strong goaltending and defense strength. George Bachrach suggested a dump and chase offense plan to coach Sam Mattingly who readily agreed. In the Tuborg team practice before the game with the Mercs, the Brewers worked on a strategy of when a puck carrier crossed center ice, he would dump the puck and make the Mercurys defensemen skate hard for it in an effort to tire them out. In the Guertler Cup final game, the strategy worked like a charm and kept the Mercs’ defensemen from controlling the style of play, as they had all season. The Tuborg Brewers kept the Mercuries off balance and with 3 third period goals claimed a 4-2 victory. The Brewers out shot the stronger Mercs team by 30-27. With this playoff win, The Tuborg Brewers had won 5 consecutive CHL championships, an unprecedented achievement.
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