I post this purely out of curiosity and in the hope that proximity to 
keywords like "Washington, DC", "hockey", 'history" and "former college 
players" provides enough synergy to make this non-college-hockey 
question sufficiently on-point for this list.

The Washington Capitals arrived in DC in 1974/75 with a record of 8-67-5 
but improved in their second season to a stellar 11-59-10.  Are there 
any ancient hockeyphiles here who recall the "winning" team that 
immediately preceded them in Washington in the hope of kindling enough 
hockey interest to someday attract an NHL franchise, the "Washington 
Chiefs", ... or their captain Oscar Mahle (U Minn., US National Team), 
... or the Civil War, ... or even that old annual spring hockey 
tournament in Erie, PA that attracted so many past college players and 
NHLers on teams like the Chiefs from everywhere east of the Mississippi, 
... attracting even a former Denver U crowd that arrived in their 
private plane every year?

The Chiefs found enough amateur talent among old college players and 
others working, enrolled in grad school or doing military service around 
DC to attract  1,000-1,500 paying fans to two games per weekend, 
occasionally a mid-week game.  The team had a "front office" by the name 
of John Crerar and a fan club, programs, mailing list and some regular 
loyal fans, including the Secretary of the Army.  They played in the old 
Coliseum (M Street off NY Ave) which had been intended for a short-lived 
Eastern Amateur Hockey League team when WWII broke out and was later 
home for the Washington Capitols basketball team.  It was also the site 
of the first Beatles concert in the US and, by the late '60s, the indoor 
venue for the annual circus and such.  They'd bring in hockey teams from 
up and down the East Coast and were good enough to stay with an 
occasional EHL pro team.  One season, their only loss was to Harvard's 
varsity.  I presume the team died once the Capitals came into being.

If anyone is familiar with the history of the Eastern Amateur Hockey 
League, I'd love to hear about that.  Apparently, it existed on-again, 
off-again from 1933 to 1953.  I gather the Washington Chiefs were a 
similar, but unaffiliated, team playing other amateur teams from areas 
that could draw a paying crowd.  I recall a Bridgeport team that brought 
a defenseman who could have eaten Paul Bunyon for breakfast.  If he 
wasn't 6'10", he was taller.

Bob Griebel