You'll Never Guess Which Was The Toughest Team To Play at MSG

The Blueshirts led by defensemen Ching Johnson and Taffy Abel made opponents cringe because Ching and Taffy were so tough in the late 1920s.

The same could be said of the 1940 Stanley Cup-winning New Yorkers, this time led by their captain, rugged defensemen Art Coulter and Canadian amateur heavyweight champ Muzz Patrick. 

Rough and ready though they were, those blue-sweatered stickhandlers could match bodychecks, fists and uppercuts with another team that frequented the Garden during the 1942-43 and 1943-44 wartime seasons. 

This was a service team of former NHLers and top minor leaguers who enlisted in the Coast Guard and called the Curtis Bay (Baltimore) Coast Guard Yard their home.

The Cutters, as they were known, played in the Eastern Amateur Hockey League; the same circuit that featured the Rangers EAHL farm team, the New York Rovers.

Nothing about the Coast Guardsmen was normal. They travelled with a 30-piece marching band, wore dazzling star-spangled uniforms and they won the national championship in both 

seasons they were in action.

Their super toughies included the very same former Ranger Art Coulter, Chicago Blackhawks bruiser Johnny Mariucci and Manny Cotlow, the fearsome D-man who played  in the minor American Association.

How tough were the Cutters? The best way to describe them can be discerned from the first paragraph of two different stories Dick Young wrote for the New York Daily News.

1. "You can cheer your soldiers, sailors and marines but if the rough riding Coast Guard hockey gang from Curtis Bay Station (Baltimore) is any indication, 'Hooligan's Navy'" is the scrappiest member of Uncle Sam's fighting family."

Young called the Cutters' style, "a punch-packed riot act – plain bull-chasing."

2. In another story, Young opened this way:

"If Mike Jacobs is still toying with the notion of staging fights twice a week at the Garden, all he has to do is keep the Curtis Bay Coast Guard Hockey team coming back to New York every Sunday. Those rip-snorting body bruisers put on their socko show yesterday.

"The Cutters spent the entire afternoon fighting with officials and rinkside cash customers, as 22 players staged a season's record march to the penalty box."

The Maven can vouch for it; I was there, and those sailor-skaters were tough!