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Washington Lions

The Washington Lions were one of the first teams in The District, staring play in the AHL in 1941 at Uline Arena. They spent two seasons in the A before moving to the EHL. There were a number of different iterations of the team but there was pretty consistently a Lions team in DC until they became the Presidents in 1957, moving to New Jersey in 1960 to become the Larks. The Lions had a rough go of it for most of their history, only posting an above .500 record once in 1955-56. Probably their most notable alum is Emilie Francis, who had a long stint as the New York Rangers coach in the 1960s and 70s. New York Islanders coach Al Arbour also had a four-game stint as a player in Washington in the early 1950s.