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
>
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