A very good way to start a fight, or at the very least a heated discussion, is to gather some former Muskegon professional hockey players and fans together and ask them what was the greatest single team in Muskegon’s 50-year professional hockey history.

One thing that is not disputable is the first team to bring Muskegon a professional league championship. That prestigious honor belongs to the 1961-1962 Muskegon Zephyrs, a group that was small in numbers (carrying just 13 players for much of the season) but long on talent, winning the International Hockey League’s Turner Cup title. The 1962 Zephyrs were led by two of the league’s top scorers in Joe Kastelic and Bryan McLay, both already members of the MASHF. The team’s other wingers were Ron Stephenson, Stan Konrad, Ken Hayden and Claude Boucher. The centers were Lyle Porter, Warren Back, and Larry Lund. Muskegon only had three defensemen on the final roster, with one of those being player/coach Moose Lallo, along with Gerry Glaude and Joe Kiss. The star player in the Turner Cup finals was goaltender Jim McLeod.

The Zephyrs finished with an outstanding 43-23-2 record in the regular season but really caught fire in the playoffs. Muskegon beat the Indianapolis Chiefs in five games in the opening round, and the Minneapolis Millers in five games in the league semi-finals. Led by the acrobatic goaltending of McLeod, the Zephyrs then posted a stunning four-game sweep of the favored perennial power St. Paul Saints in the finals. The team was owned by Jerry DeLise. Frazier Gleason was the team’s trainer and Dick Bittner the office manager.