MUSKEGON - There’s no hint of sibling rivalry between Eli and Tyler Cuti, even though both are talented forwards for the Reeths-Puffer hockey team, and only a year apart in age.
In fact it's just the opposite. They have always been partners in their passion for hockey and very loyal companions.
For the last four years, Tyler has enjoyed watching his older brother Eli become a star point-producer for the Rockets who scored his way into the local high school record book.
“That’s my brother out there doing that," Tyler said. "I’ve always been really happy for him."
Tyler added that he's always been a little protective of Eli, who is only 5-foot-6 and sometimes gets knocked down by bigger opponents, mostly because he's so good.
Eli and Tyler Cuti
"I get more fueled up when that happens," Tyler said. "If he goes down, he ain't going to be alone."
This year Eli has been thrilled to see Tyler join him as a big scorer for the Rockets, after two seasons of gaining more confidence in his abilities.
“It’s amazing to see,” Eli said. “He’s always had a heck of a shot, and we’ve always told him to be confident in it and use it. He’s been finding corners you don’t even see. If feels good to see my brother tearing it up!”
The Cuti brothers are Fruitport High School students who play for Reeths-Puffer hockey under a co-op agreement, and they’ve had a huge impact on the R-P program over the past few years.
Eli, a senior, is in his fourth and final season with the Rockets. Tyler, a junior, joined the team one year after his brother. They are both team co-captains this season and are widely respected by teammates and coaches.
"Ever since those boys were 10-years-old, they have been at the rink and on the ice, any time they could be,” said R-P head coach Bill Zalba, who has been working with the Cuti brothers since they were very young. “They have put in the work to be where they are.
“It’s not because of natural talent. Nobody in their family ever played hockey. Everything they’ve accomplished is because of hard work and wanting to be better.”
They are both big scorers now
Eli Cuti has been a point-production machine since his freshman season.
He scored 10 goals in 2022-23, and made a name for himself with his unselfishness and crafty playmaking skills, piling up 24 assists.
Eli dropped to seven goals as a sophomore, but increased his assist total to a career-high mark of 33.
Last year he started shooting a little more and scored 15 goals while still contributing 28 assists.
This season Eli has 9 goals and 26 assists with at least one game to go.
He is already Reeths-Puffer’s all-time points leader (combined goals and assists), and is only four away from becoming the Muskegon area’s career high school point king.
Eli Cuti gets ready to unleash a shot.
Mona Shores graduateTrent Benedict is the all-time leader at 163 points. Eli currently has 159. In third place is former Mona Shores great Justin Abdelkader (a former Detroit Red Wings player), who accumulated 138 points in only two years of varsity hockey.
Of course the majority of Eli’s points have been assists, but a lot of R-P goals never would have happened if he had not set up the plays.
“He is one of the smartest players I have ever coached,” Coach Zalba said about Eli. “He’s actually one of the smartest I have ever been around, as a player or coach. He has a knack for seeing things before they happen. That’s not a skill you can teach. You either have it or you don’t, and he definitely has it.”
Eli said he is perfectly comfortable getting assists and letting teammates get the spotlight for scoring.
“I’ve always been the guy who can see what the better option is,” he said. “I would not back off from scoring a goal, but I will always try to make the right play.”
Tyler's success has come a little slower. He put up promising numbers in his first two years of varsity hockey, totaling 9 goals and 9 assists as a freshman and 7 goals and 4 assists last year as a sophomore, but everyone knew he could produce more.
This year he has exploded, rolling up 16 goals and 10 assists. He is second on the team in goal scoring, behind fellow junior Hayden Taylor.
Tyler Cuti breaks in on goal alone.
Tyler said his increased production has everything to do with increased confidence, which led to a willingness to shoot more.
“Last year I was averaging one or two shots per game, and some games I didn’t shoot at all,” Tyler said. “In our last eight or nine games this year I’ve been averaging about six to eight shots per game. I just have more confidence, I’ve been more open, and I’m seeing the ice a lot better. When I see a corner now, I’m going to take it."
Zalba has been thrilled with Tyler’s scoring binge this season.
“Tyler has been working for three years to have a season like this,” he said. “We knew the potential was there. We were just waiting for it to happen. He has been our hottest player for about the last six to eight weeks. It’s been great to watch.”
A family affair
The Cuti brothers’ hockey roots were planted well before they were born, by their hockey-crazy father.
Tony Cuti was never a player himself, but he was a big fan who became immersed in the local hockey scene.
As a kid, he was always in the bleachers watching the old Muskegon Mohawks professional team. In the early 2000s, Tony and his wife Erin owned a local bar called Cuti's, a popular hangout for professional players from the old Muskegon Fury hockey team.
Tony became close friends with a number of Fury players, and became an every-home- game fan. That meant Eli and Tyler started absorbing their dad's love for the sport before they knew what it was.
“I would bring them to the rink all the time,” Tony Cuti said. “They were probably both at Fury games within a month of being born.”
Both boys were on skates by the time they were four and five and playing in recreational leagues by the time they were seven and eight. They eventually joined the Muskegon Junior Lumberjacks, a youth travel program established by Coach Zalba, who is a former Fury player and a friend of Tony Cuti.
The Cuti boys during their earliest years at the rink.
The boys excelled at each level.
"Eli was the passer, Tyler was the scorer," Tony Cuti said. "They tore it up."
The brothers became even more involved in the local hockey scene as they grew.
Their parents were billet hosts to several Muskegon Lumberjacks players over the years, allowing them to learn from the talented college-bound athletes who shared their home.
The Cuti boys started working for the Lumberjacks in their early teens, performing various tasks for the team on game nights.
That gave them the opportunity to have the ice to themselves in the late hours, after the Lumberjacks games were over.
Tyler and Eli in their Junior Lumberjacks days.
"We built relationships with the zamboni guys, and would kind of ask if the ice was open after games." Eli said. "They would put a net out there and let us go shoot around. We tried to get out there as much as we could."
Eli and Tyler were lucky to have parents who spent a lot of money to keep them in the expensive sport, and drove them all over Michigan and beyond for distant travel games.
"We always call them our big bang for the bucks we had," Tony Cuti said.
Both boys appreciate everything their parents have done for them - now more than ever - after two scary encounters with mortality.
Tony Cuti had two heart attacks – in 2023 and 2025 – that nearly took his life.
The first one happened when he was at home, and Erin literally saved his life by performing CPR until paramedics arrived. The second occurred a little over a year ago in the hospital, while Tony was recovering from bypass surgery, and he had to be resuscitated by medical personnel.
Eli and Tyler with their parents, Erin and Tony Cuti.
“It was an insane ride,” Eli said about his dad's health emergencies. “We were working (at an ice cream shop) the day the first one happened. My grandma and grandpa pulled up and told us we had to go, because our dad was on his way to the hospital.
“I was just freaking out. Tyler is the more calm one. He coped with it a lot better than I did.:”
Tony Cuti is now doing well with a pacemaker, and he’s back in the stands to watch the games whenever his work schedule allows it.
He actually asked the doctors to install the pacemaker just a few days after the second heart attack, since there were a still a few weeks left in the R-P hockey season, and he didn't want to miss any more games than necessary.
“We were just excited to see him back up and cheering for us again,” Tyler said. “It felt like normal again.”
The end of a great run
The Cuti brothers’ time as teammates with the R-P hockey team has nearly expired.
Eli is set to graduate in June, and the current season is rapidly winding down.
The Rockets will host a Division 1 regional tournament - the first leg of the MHSAA state tournament – at Muskegon's Trinity Health Arena this week. The Rockets' season will continue as long as they keep winning.
The biggest challenge for R-P will be overcoming their recent slump, which has grown to five straight losses, following a hot streak that included six wins in seven games.
Eli, in the middle, tries to poke the puck past the goalie.
Reeths-Puffer is now 12-12-1 on the season.
The Rockets will be bolstered by having both Eli and Tyler back in the lineup.
Eli suffered a pretty nasty shoulder injury about two weeks ago and has missed four games. Tyler also recently incurred an upper boy injury, but it was less serious and he played in a game last Wednesday.
Eli says he’s feeling much better and will be good to go on Wednesday, when the Rockets open regionals against Grand Haven or Jenison at 7 p.m. at Trinity Health Arena.
Tyler gets physical with an opponent.
He may not get the points he needs to become the area's all-time leader, since R-P is only guaranteed one more game, but he's more worried about getting his team back on track.
“The energy on the team needs to be brought up a little bit more," Eli said. "I feel confident we can turn it around at regionals and get buzzing again. We need to get our butts back to work, restore the energy and keep it going.”
Regardless of what happens in regionals, the Cuti boys are well aware that their hockey partnership, and their years of companionship, is about to be broken up by the passage of time.
By next winter, Eli will be playing for a college hockey team or an elite junior squad somewhere. Tyler is planning to return to the R-P hockey team for his senior season.
Eli with the puck behind an opponent's goal.
“It’s definitely going to be a little weird,” Tyler said about playing without Eli on the team. “It’s going to be a whole new environment for me. I am trying to get past the fact that I am not going to be going to school with him or to the rink with him."
Eli has alternating emotions, ranging from excitement about his future to sadness about leaving his family behind, particularly his brother.
“We go everywhere together – to school in the morning, to practice every day, to lifting in the gym,” Eli said. “It’s going to be hard, obviously. I am excited to graduate and move on to my future, but it’s tough to think about not being with my brother all the time, unless we end up playing juniors together.
“My emotions are kind of like, just sad. It’s going to hurt for a second, then we will move on fast.”