The Toronto Maple Leafs are a National Hockey League franchise founded in 1917 that took its present name in 1927. The club has won 13 Stanley Cups, the last in 1967, according to the NHL and to Parks Canada, and it has played at Scotiabank Arena (opened in February 1999 as the Air Canada Centre) since leaving Maple Leaf Gardens.
The overview of Toronto’s professional sports teams gives a short account of every club. This article stays with hockey: how the franchise got its names, who owned it, and how it came through the lean years of the 1920s and 1930s. The building that housed the club for 68 years has its own page, Maple Leaf Gardens.
Three names in ten years
The NHL’s team history says the franchise began in 1917 as the Toronto team, run by the Toronto Arena Company, which owned the Arena Gardens. The NHL calls the club the Arenas today, and the Canadian Encyclopedia notes it was also called the Torontos in its early days. In 1919 the league moved the franchise to new owners, who renamed it the Toronto St. Patricks. A Parks Canada backgrounder dated October 3, 2018, places the change to “St. Pats” one year earlier, in 1918, so the league and the federal agency differ by a year. The NHL date is used here for the ownership transfer, and the difference is left unresolved.
Both early names are tied to titles. Parks Canada lists Stanley Cup wins in 1918 and 1922, the first under the Arenas name and the second under the St. Patricks name.
Conn Smythe and the 1927 sale
The NHL says the club was sold in 1927 and renamed the Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club. Parks Canada adds that Conn Smythe, a Toronto investor, businessman, and athlete, renamed the team the Maple Leafs and saved it from a sale to Philadelphia. His ownership stake grew from 1927 to 1961, and he served as president for much of that time, the same backgrounder states. The Canadian Encyclopedia says Smythe’s reasons for the new name are not clear and that the team may have been named in honor of a First World War fighting unit, the Maple Leaf Regiment.
The move that changed the club’s identity came during the Great Depression. Parks Canada credits Smythe with championing a new arena in those years, and the team played its first game at Maple Leaf Gardens on November 12, 1931, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia, losing to the Chicago Blackhawks. The NHL names the Gardens as the club’s home from 1931 until 1999. The backgrounder says a forward unit known as the “kid line” (Charlie Conacher, Joe Primeau, and Busher Jackson) helped the team win the Cup in the season it first played there, which is 1931-32.
Surviving the 1920s and 1930s
Many early NHL clubs moved, merged, or folded. Parks Canada states that the Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens were the only Canadian clubs to survive the 1920s and 1930s, which left Toronto as the league’s only English-Canadian team. The same text links the club’s national reach to its radio announcer, who called Leafs games and later worked on Hockey Night in Canada.
Game coverage from each season can be read in the city’s old dailies. The newspaper archives article explains where the runs of the Toronto papers survive.
The Cup years, 1918 to 1967
Parks Canada says the club won 13 Cups between 1918 and 1967 and describes two dynasties, one running through the 1940s and one in the 1960s. Besides 1918 and 1922, its list is 1932 (the first season at the Gardens), then 1942, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1949, and 1951, and then 1962, 1963, 1964, and 1967. That adds up to 13. The Canadian Encyclopedia’s article on Harold Ballard agrees that four Cups came between the 1961-62 and 1966-67 seasons.
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1917 | Franchise founded as the Toronto team, run by the Toronto Arena Company | NHL |
| 1918 | First Stanley Cup | Parks Canada |
| 1919 (NHL) or 1918 (Parks Canada) | Renamed the Toronto St. Patricks | NHL; Parks Canada |
| 1922 | Stanley Cup as the St. Patricks | Parks Canada |
| 1927 | Sold and renamed the Maple Leafs | NHL; Parks Canada |
| November 1931 | First game at Maple Leaf Gardens | Parks Canada |
| 1967 | Thirteenth and most recent Cup | NHL; Parks Canada |
| February 1999 | Move to the Air Canada Centre | NHL; Scotiabank Arena |
The Ballard years
Conn Smythe gave up control in 1961. The Canadian Encyclopedia’s article on Harold Ballard says Stafford Smythe, John Bassett, and Ballard bought control of the Maple Leafs from Conn Smythe. Accounts of the price differ, so none is printed here.
In September 1971 Ballard and Stafford Smythe bought out Bassett. Stafford Smythe died the following month, and by February 1972 Ballard was principal owner. Ballard and Smythe had been charged in 1969 with tax evasion and with using Maple Leaf Gardens money for personal expenses. The Encyclopedia gives no conviction year; it says Ballard served a year in prison beginning in the fall of 1972. He died in Toronto on April 11, 1990.
The Encyclopedia is direct about the results. It writes that Ballard’s “bombastic, autocratic style contributed to the team’s decline on the ice” and that the club became a laughingstock in the 1980s. It adds that during the early-1960s Cups he had little part in day-to-day hockey decisions. Win-loss figures for the period are left out because no league page was read for them.
A new arena in 1999
The NHL records the move from the Gardens to the Air Canada Centre in February 1999. The arena’s own history page gives exact dates: the first hockey game was on February 20, 1999, between the Maple Leafs and the Canadiens, and the first basketball game followed a day later. Groundbreaking was in February 1997, on the site of the former Canada Post Delivery Building, and the east and south walls of that structure were kept. The architects were Brisbin Brook Beynon and the general contractor was PCL Constructors Eastern Inc.
The building carried the Air Canada Centre name until June 2018 and has been Scotiabank Arena since July 2018, under a naming-rights deal the arena page says was signed in 2017. The NHL lists Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment as the club’s owner, represented by chairman Larry Tanenbaum. The Raptors play in the same building, as described in the Raptors article.
National recognition
The October 2018 Parks Canada backgrounder commemorates the club’s national historic significance and calls it one of the most storied major-league sports clubs in North America. That recognition covers the team as an institution. The Gardens building is a separate subject, covered in its own article.
Frequently asked questions
When were the Toronto Maple Leafs founded?
The NHL gives 1917 as the founding year. The club took the name Maple Leafs in 1927 after the sale of the franchise.
When did the Maple Leafs last win the Stanley Cup?
In 1967. Both the NHL and Parks Canada count 13 Cups, the last in 1967.
What were the Maple Leafs called before 1927?
The team began as the Toronto team, known as the Arenas, and later became the Toronto St. Patricks. The NHL dates the second name to 1919, while Parks Canada places it in 1918.
Where did the Maple Leafs play before Scotiabank Arena?
At Maple Leaf Gardens from 1931 to 1999, according to the NHL. The club moved to the Air Canada Centre in February 1999, and that building was renamed Scotiabank Arena in 2018.
Who owned the Maple Leafs before the current owner?
Conn Smythe held a growing share from 1927 to 1961. After that, Stafford Smythe, John Bassett, and Harold Ballard took control, and Ballard was principal owner from early 1972 until his death in 1990, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia. The NHL now lists Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment as owner.
Related reading
- The arena at Carlton and Church streets, 1931 to 1999
- The Toronto Star and its coverage of the city
- The Toronto Telegram, another daily of the era
- The Raptors, who share the arena today
- All of Toronto’s major professional teams
Sources
- National Hockey League, Toronto Maple Leafs, “Team History”
- Parks Canada, backgrounder “The Toronto Maple Leafs,” October 3, 2018, Government of Canada
- Cheryl Williams, “Toronto Maple Leafs,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, Historica Canada
- The Canadian Encyclopedia, “Harold Ballard,” Historica Canada
- Scotiabank Arena, “History”
Last verified: October 2026
Cite this page
APA: History of Toronto. (2026, October 25). Toronto Maple Leafs history: from the Arenas to 1999. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/toronto-maple-leafs-history
MLA: “Toronto Maple Leafs history: from the Arenas to 1999.” History of Toronto, 25 Oct. 2026, https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/toronto-maple-leafs-history. Accessed .
Chicago: History of Toronto. “Toronto Maple Leafs history: from the Arenas to 1999.” Last modified October 25, 2026. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/toronto-maple-leafs-history.
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