Michigan Tech’s Mike Zuke is Tech’s all-time leading scorer with 133 goals and 177 assists. (Michigan Tech photo)

HOUGHTON — When it came to putting the puck in the net, Mike Zuke and George Lyle did it as well as any hockey players ever to appear locally.

The two were recruited to Michigan Tech by legendary coach John MacInnes at a time when the Huskies were annually among the best in college hockey.

In a period between 1974 and 1976, the Huskies won an NCAA championship in 1975 and finished as the runner-up in the other two seasons.

“That was a time when Michigan Tech hockey was at its zenith,” former Daily Mining Gazette sportswriter Pete Bousu said. “And they were playing in a very tough conference in the WCHA.”

The old Western Collegiate Hockey Association had powers like North Dakota, Denver, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Colorado College and Michigan Tech.

Zuke, who still holds the Tech career scoring mark with 133 goals and 177 assists, came to Houghton after a sparkling junior career in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. 

In an interview in 2009, Zuke said MacInnes was an effective recruiter.

“He didn’t make a lot of promises like some other coaches,” Zuke recalled. “He just told me if I wanted to play in a winning program and get a quality education, Tech was the place for me.”

Lyle, who hailed from West Vancouver, British Columbia, was signed to come to Tech a year before Zuke.

But he decided to play a year in the United States Hockey league with the new Copper Country Chiefs before joining the Huskies.

Chiefs’ teammate and longtime north-end hockey figure Bruce “Cukie” Coppo of Calumet remembered Lyle as a player with great physical tools.

“He (Lyle) was a big, strong (6-foot-2, 215-pound) guy with a hard shot,” Lyle recalled. “He didn’t mind going into the corners and mixing it up, either.”

Lyle had a good season in his one year with the Chiefs, accounting for 23 goals and 16 assists.

The Chiefs, who were in the USHL for three seasons, didn’t have the best of records. But they were able to rise to the occasion.

In the 1972-73 season, the Chiefs bested league champion and Allan Trophy winner Thunder Bay, Ontario by a 1-0 score.

By the time Zuke and Lyle joined the Huskies for the 1973-74 campaign, there was plenty of talent on hand.

The late Bob D’Alvise was another forward with a good scoring touch. D’Alvise notched 100 goals in his career.

Bruce Horsch, later a standout goaltender for the Huskies, said no deficit was too large for those teams in the mid-1970s.

“We could be down two goals in the third period and there was no panic on the bench,” said Horsch, now the Houghton High athletic director. “Those guys could score in bunches.”

In the 1975-76 season, both Zuke and Lyle gained All-WCHA and All-American honors by scoring 47 goals each.

The two Tech stars also had the distinction of playing before a record Student Development Complex crowd of 4,600 fans in a February 1976 Winter Carnival game versus Michigan.

“The fire marshal was out of town that night,” Bousu recalled. “They shoe-horned them in that night.”

Zuke and Lyle moved on to pro hockey after the 1975-76 campaign.

Zuke played for eight years in the National Hockey League, mostly with the St. Louis Blues and Hartford Whalers.

Lyle went on to play with the Red Wings and Whalers for four seasons. He ended his career in the World Hockey Association.

Tech made one more NCAA Finals appearance under MacInnes, that coming in 1981 in Duluth. The Huskies were defeated by Minnesota in a semifinal contest.

Tech hasn’t been back to the NCAA finals since.