who own da chiefs?????

> Date:         Sat, 4 Apr 2009 21:01:40 -0400
> From: Bob Griebel <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Wash DC hockey in the years B.C.
> 
> 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
> 



 /"\    ASCII Ribbon   | charlie shub                (719) 255-3492
 \ /  Campaign Against | [log in to unmask]        (mobile) 761-8778
  X    HTML in e-mail  | http://cs.uccs.edu/~cdash   (fax) 255-3369
 / \      and news     | University of Colorado at Colorado Springs