The Toronto Maple Leafs are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The organization, one of the "Original Six" members of the NHL, is officially known as the Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club and is the leading subsidiary of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. (MLSE). They have played at the Air Canada Centre (ACC) since 1999, after 68 years at Maple Leaf Gardens.
The Leafs are well known for their long and bitter rivalry with the Montreal Canadiens, and more recent rivalry with the Buffalo Sabres and the Ottawa Senators. The franchise has won thirteen Stanley Cup championships, eleven as the Leafs, one as the Toronto St. Patricks, and one as the Toronto Arenas.
At $470 million (2009), the Leafs are the most valuable team in the NHL, followed by the New York Rangers and the Montreal Canadiens.
Team history
Main article: History of the Toronto Maple LeafsEarly years
The National Hockey League was formed in 1917 in Montreal by teams formerly belonging to the National Hockey Association (NHA) that had a dispute with Eddie Livingstone, owner of the Toronto Blueshirts. The owners of the other four clubs – the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Quebec Bulldogs, and Ottawa Senators – had enough votes between them to expel Livingstone from the NHA. Instead, they opted to create a new league, the NHL, and effectively left Livingstone's squad in the NHA by itself.
However, the other clubs felt it would be unthinkable not to have a team from Toronto (Canada's second largest city at the time) in the new league. They also needed another team to balance the schedule after the Bulldogs suspended operations (and as it turned out, would not ice a team until 1920). Accordingly, the NHL granted a "temporary" Toronto franchise to the Arena Company, owners of the Arena Gardens. The Arena Company agreed to lease the Blueshirts' players for the season until the dispute was resolved. This temporary franchise did not have an official name, but was informally called "the Blueshirts" by area writers and sometimes called "the Torontos" by fans. Under manager Charlie Querrie and coach Dick Carroll, the Toronto team won the Stanley Cup in the NHL's inaugural season.
For the next season, rather than return the Blueshirts' players to Livingstone as originally promised, the Arena Company formed its own team, the Toronto Arena Hockey Club, which was readily granted full-fledged membership in the NHL. Also that year, it was decided that only NHL teams would be allowed to play at the Arena Gardens. Livingstone sued to get his players back. Mounting legal bills from the dispute forced the Arenas to sell most of their stars, resulting in a horrendous five-win season in 1918–19. When it was obvious that the Arenas would not be able to finish out the season, the NHL agreed to let the Arenas halt operations in February 1919 and proceed directly to the playoffs. The Arenas' .278 winning percentage that season is still the worst in franchise history.
The legal dispute nearly ruined the Arena Company, and it was forced to put the Arenas up for sale. Querrie put together a group that mainly consisted of the people who had run the senior amateur St. Patricks team in the Ontario Hockey Association. The new owners renamed the team the Toronto St. Patricks (or St. Pats for short) and would operate it until 1927. This period saw the team's jersey colours change from blue to green, as well as a second Stanley Cup championship in 1922.
During this time, the St. Patricks also allowed other teams to play in the Arena Gardens whenever their home rinks lacked proper ice in the warmer months. At the time, the Arena was the only facility east of Manitoba with artificial ice.
Conn Smythe era
Querrie lost a lawsuit to Livingstone and decided to put the St. Pats up for sale. He gave serious consideration to a $200,000 bid from a Philadelphia group. However, Toronto Varsity Graduates coach Conn Smythe put together an ownership group of his own and made a $160,000 offer for the franchise. With the support of St. Pats shareholder J. P. Bickell, Smythe persuaded Querrie to reject the Philadelphia bid, arguing that civic pride was more important than money.
After taking control on Valentine's Day 1927, Smythe immediately renamed the team the Maple Leafs (the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team had won the International League championship a few months earlier and had been using that name for 30 years). The Maple Leafs say that the name was chosen in honour of the Maple Leaf Regiment from World War I. As the regiment is a proper noun, its plural is formed by adding a simple 's' creating Maple Leafs (not * Maple Leaves ). Another story says that Smythe named the team after a team he had once scouted, called the East Toronto Maple Leafs, while Smythe's grandson states that Conn named the team after the Maple Leaf insignia he had worn during the First World War. Initial reports were that the team's colours would be changed to red and white, but the Leafs were wearing white sweaters with a green maple leaf for their first game on February 17, 1927. The next season, the Leafs appeared for the first time in the blue and white sweaters they have worn ever since. The Maple Leafs say that blue represents the Canadian skies and white represents snow, but it also follows the tradition of blue being Toronto's principal sporting colour starting with the Toronto Argonauts in 1873 and the University of Toronto Varsity Blues in 1877.
1930s: Opening of Maple Leaf Gardens and first Maple Leaf dynasty
After four more lacklustre seasons (including three with Smythe as coach), Smythe and the Leafs debuted at their new arena, Maple Leaf Gardens, with a 2-1 loss to the Chicago Black Hawks on November 12, 1931.
Led by the "Kid Line" (Busher Jackson, Joe Primeau and Charlie Conacher) and coach Dick Irvin, the Leafs would capture their third Stanley Cup during the first season in their stadium, vanquishing the Montreal Maroons in the first round, the Boston Bruins in the semifinals, and the New York Rangers in the Stanley Cup Finals. Smythe took particular pleasure in defeating the Rangers that year; he had been tapped as the Rangers' first general manager and coach in the Rangers' inaugural season (1926–27), but had been fired in a dispute with Madison Square Garden management before the season.
The Leafs' star forward, Ace Bailey, was nearly killed in 1933 when Boston Bruins defenseman Eddie Shore checked him from behind into the boards at full speed. Maple Leafs defenseman Red Horner was able to knock Shore out with a punch, but it was too late as Bailey, who was by now writhing on the ice, had his career ended. The Leafs would hold the NHL's first All-Star Game to benefit Bailey.
The Leafs would reach the Finals five more times in the next seven years, but would not win, bowing out to the now-defunct Maroons in 1935, the Detroit Red Wings in 1936, the Chicago Black Hawks in 1938, Boston in 1939, and the hated Rangers in 1940. At this time, Smythe allowed Irvin to go to Montreal to help revive the then-moribund Canadiens, replacing him as coach with former Leafs captain Hap Day.
1940s: A second decade of success
In the 1942 season, the Maple Leafs were down three games to none in a best-of-seven final in the playoffs against Detroit. However, fourth-line forward Don Metz would galvanize the team, coming from nowhere to score a hat trick in game four and the game-winning goal in game five, with the Leafs winning both times. Captain Syl Apps had won the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy that season, not taking one penalty and finishing his ten-season career with an average of 5 minutes, 36 seconds in penalties a season. Goalie Turk Broda would shut out the Wings in game six, and Sweeney Schriner would score two goals in the third period to win the seventh game 3-1.
Apps told writer Trent Frayne in 1949, "If you want me to be pinned down to my biggest second, I'd say it was the last tick of the clock that sounded the final bell. It's something I shall never forget at all." It was the first time a major pro sports team came back from behind 3-0 to win a best-of-seven championship series.
Three years later, with their heroes from 1942 dwindling (due to either age, health, or the war), the Leafs turned to lesser-known players like rookie goalie Frank McCool and defenseman Babe Pratt. They would upset the Red Wings in the 1945 finals.
The powerful defending champion Montreal Canadiens and their "Punch Line" (Maurice "Rocket" Richard, Toe Blake and Elmer Lach), would be the Leafs' nemesis two years later when the two teams clashed in the 1947 finals. Ted "Teeder" Kennedy would score the game-winning goal late in game six to win the Leafs their first of three straight Cups — the first time any NHL team had accomplished that feat. With their Cup victory in 1948, the Leafs moved ahead of Montreal for the most Stanley Cups in league history. It would take the Canadiens 10 years to reclaim the record.
1950s: The Barilko Curse
The Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens would meet once again in the finals in 1951, with all five games going to overtime. Tod Sloan scored with 42 seconds left in the third period of game five to send it to an extra peri
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