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It was in this season that the National Brewers’ dominance in the Chesapeake Hockey League began to take hold. Also, it was during this time that the National Brewing Company changed the logo on it’s flagship brand, National Bohemian Beer. Brewers’ founder and former player Roger Goss emerged as the pitchman in the brewery’s new television commercials. The classic red Brewers’ jerseys were again re-crested with the new National Boh ‘racetrack logo’. A large logo crest went on the front of the jersey and a smaller crest went on the left sleeve. Most of the strong CHL teams were now in the East division and played in Baltimore. As a result of the East division strength, the CHL split into separate leagues, one in Baltimore and the other in Washington. Both leagues continued to use the CHL name, with the local loop known as the Chesapeake Hockey League of Baltimore. The local CHL now made use of helmets mandatory equipment. The team played non league games in the Philadelphia area against the North Penn Eagles and Westchester and lost both games by a 2 goal margin. A 3-3 tie on the road was played against the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Bud Hardwick took over the coaching reins from Sam Mattingly to become the Brewer’s second coach. Steve Bachman took over as team manager and greatly increased the non league games scheduled. Increasing the number of games would help to put the Brewers over the top. Steve Bachman led the scoring parade, followed by key newcomers Tom McLaughlin and Mickey McBee, then by Tim Strasdauskas, Steve Wirth, Randy Mattingly and Dave Mattingly. The level of play increased as the team chemistry improved, with enough talented players to ice three solid lines. Several of the young players were playing for the Maryland Aces junior team and were missing from games that conflicted with the Brewers’ schedule. Key newcomers included: Joe Raspe, Gerard Mosback, Steve Brown, Garry Goldberg and Greg Goldberg. Gerry Horak again played 15 games to Ron Olenick’s 5 games in the net and both were very effective. The scoring increased to 95 goals scored and the defensive play was much tighter, with 54 goals allowed. The Brewers went undefeated in the last 8 games of the CHL season to finish a strong second to the Jr. Clippers. This was the first season of the Brewers legendary second half surges. Third place went to Navy, followed by the Mercurys and the Columbia Pioneers, in their first year of what was now the CHL of Baltimore. Steve Bachman hosted a March 2nd party to mark the end of a very successful regular season.
For the 1973-74 season, the Guertler Cup, named after the Mercurys long time coach, was to be awarded to the CHL playoff champion. Heading into the semi-final with the Jr. Clippers, Coach Hardwick offered the ultimate pre-game motivational speech that would go down in team history as ‘puck full of nets’. Bud, always a good sport, good spirit and good organizer, was looking to make a noteworthy contribution to a team that sometimes behaved as if it needed no coach. Offering his own hand-crafted pen on notepad drawing, Bud had the outline of a hockey goal with more than a dozen scribbled dots in the middle. He showed the drawing to the team in the pre-game talk and said, “guys, this is what we need to do today”. After noticing that the players were trying to figure out what the drawing was, Bud said, “guys, this is a puck full of nets and if we do this today, we will win the game”. The players, after cutting Bud some slack for his interchange of the most important words, responded well to the motivational talk and filled the Jr. Clippers net with 6 goals to notch, at that time, the most important Brewers’ victory. The result was a tough semi final win by a 6-4 score, with Tim Strasdauskas scoring 2 goals. This was the Brewers first victory over their rival after 15 previous contests that included 12 losses. In the championship game, Tom McLaughlin’s 2 goals and Ron Olenick’s 23 saves enabled beer men to capture the CHL championship by defeating Navy by a 3-1 score. It was a tight game as the final tally, into an open net, was with 42 seconds remaining in the contest. This was a significant season in the National Brewers history. The team had won a major championship and was now the top amateur hockey club in the Baltimore area. In addition, the team was beginning to dominate some of the games.
The championship was featured in the Summer 1974 issue of the Schooner, an in house National Brewing Company magazine. A team picture and a write up about the successful season showed the promotional value of the National Beer sponsorship.
    
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