National Brewers

This season was a rebirth of the Brewers past glory days. The Washington Chesapeake Hockey League accepted the Columbia Brewers as a full time member of the league. All regular season games were scheduled on Monday nights at 8 PM at Fort Dupont ice rink. This game time was accepted by the league due to the Brewers' players driving distance issues. The league played games on other nights than Monday, but would keep all Brewers games on that night only. This also allowed the club to have a regular table at the Italian Inn for beer and pizza after the games which helped team unity. Other home non league games were played at Columbia, the Baltimore Civic Center and Orchard Ice Rink. Only 3 northern games were scheduled, including the usual trip to Wissahickon. The season included a total of 28 games. This would be the fourth consecutive season that the team did not receive sponsorship money. To defray rising costs, the Columbia Brewers would need additional dollars from fund raising. This was done with the first ever team program, produced by Steve Wirth. The program included pre season pictures of the possible players and profiles of each. It also included statistics for the non league1980-81 season and some all time Brewers info. Dave Mattingly began the season on a tryout with the Baltimore Skipjacks of the professional Atlantic Coast Hockey League. He returned to the Columbia Brewers in early November, but later in the season missed a few CHL games on a call up to the Skipjacks of the ACHL.

Goalie Tom Browne played the CHL games and Hank Phillips played most of the non league games. This was due to Phillips being the regular goalie for the CHL Coast Guard team. The club won the initial 11 games starting the season, including 6 league contests. The Brewers breezed through the CHL with a 12-1-1 regular season record. The team's main rival was the Arsenal hockey club and they finished a close second with a 11-3-0 record, followed by Fairfax, Caravan Sporting Goods, the Coast Guard club team, Georgetown University and the D & F Arrows.

During the playoffs, the single game first round featured the Brewers topping Caravan by a 7-3 score. Next on tap was a best of 3 final series with Arsenal. The beer men took game one by a 9-7 score for a commanding series lead, or so it seemed. In game two, the Brewers were as flat as a team could be, with Arsenal taking a relatively easy 4-1 victory. This now made the best of 3 series a one game final. Arsenal completely outplayed the regular season champs in the finale and triumphed by 7-4. Arsenal out shot the Brewers by 34-13 and totally dominated the game. It was a very disappointing loss to cap an outstanding season for the Columbia Brewers. The team approached the dominance of the 1974-77 glory days, but lost a great chance at another playoff title. Overall, the Brewers were 21-6-1, but the 2-2 playoff record put a damper on an otherwise outstanding season.