50 Fun Facts About Toronto Maple Leafs

Toronto's NHL champions of 1917-18, the league's first season, are in the record books under what name?

Arenas is the name in the record books, after the Arena Company that ran the club; at the time press and fans also called it the Blueshirts or simply the Torontos.

Before Conn Smythe made them the blue-and-white Maple Leafs in 1927, Toronto's NHL team wore which colour?

Green came with the name: the owners of 1919 called the team the St. Patricks, hoping to draw Toronto's large Irish population to its games.

Conn Smythe's group bought the St. Patricks in 1927, beating a rival who wanted to move the team where?

Philadelphia was where a rival bidder meant to take the team with his $200,000 offer; Smythe's group won with $160,000 and an appeal to civic pride.

Conn Smythe said he chose the maple leaf because of his experience as what?

A First World War soldier, later shot down and held prisoner, Smythe called the maple leaf a badge of courage; a Toronto baseball club had already carried the name for more than thirty years.

The Leafs say the blue in their colours stands for Canadian skies and the white for what?

Snow is the club's answer, though Conn Smythe's sand-and-gravel trucks wore the same blue and white, as did the University of Toronto teams he had played for and coached.

Maple Leaf Gardens was built in 1931 on land bought from which Toronto retailing family?

Eaton's sold the site for $350,000, a price said to be well below market value, and the arena rose on it in five months in the depths of the Depression.

The radio broadcaster's press box high above the Gardens ice was nicknamed what?

The gondola hung over the Gardens ice for 48 years, until 1979, when the Leafs' owner had it torn out and burned to make room for private boxes.

The Leafs' 1930s 'Kid Line' featured Busher Jackson, Joe Primeau and whom?

Charlie Conacher, the line's right winger with the booming shot, twice won the NHL scoring title; the three 'kids' took the 1932 Stanley Cup and then lost final after final.

Whose No. 6, retired in 1934 after an Eddie Shore hit, was pro sports' first retired number?

Ace Bailey received the proceeds of a benefit game between the Leafs and a team of NHL all-stars; before it, he shook hands with Shore, the man who had ended his career.

The 1942 Leafs remain, as of 2026, the only team to do what in a Stanley Cup Final?

Win after trailing 3-0: with Detroit one victory away, coach Hap Day benched scoring star Gordie Drillon for seldom-used Don Metz, and Toronto took the next four games.

Bill Barilko, whose plane vanished in northern Ontario months after his 1951 Cup-winning goal, came from which mining town?

Timmins lost its hero on a fishing-trip flight; the wreck lay hidden for eleven years and was found weeks after the Leafs' next Cup win in 1962, a tale told in The Tragically Hip's 'Fifty Mission Cap'.

Every game of the 1951 Toronto–Montreal Cup Final featured what?

Overtime decided all five games: the last ended when defenceman Bill Barilko left his post, against his coach's orders, and scored the goal that won the Cup.

The Leafs' 1967 Stanley Cup, their 13th, was won in six games over which team?

Montreal Canadiens had won the last two Cups and planned to show off the next at Expo 67 in their own city; a much older Toronto team spoiled the plan.

Which Leafs defenceman scored the Game 6 winner in the 1964 Final on a broken ankle?

Bob Baun was carried off after stopping a Gordie Howe shot, had the ankle frozen, came back and scored the winner; Toronto then won Game 7 for a third straight Cup.

Which Leafs owner was jailed for fraud and theft in 1972 and still kept the club?

Harold Ballard had only just bought control when he was jailed; his partner Stafford Smythe, charged alongside him, died shortly before his own case reached court.

Which Leafs captain had six goals and four assists against Boston on 7 February 1976, an NHL single-game points record?

Darryl Sittler's ten points beat a record of eight that had stood since 1944; every one came against rookie goalie Dave Reece, who never played in the NHL again.

A Leafs captain cut the C off his sweater in 1979 in a feud with which GM?

Punch Imlach, back after winning four Cups in the 1960s, could not trade a captain with a no-trade contract, so he traded the captain's closest friends instead, Lanny McDonald among them.

Which Kings star high-sticked Doug Gilmour unpenalised in the 1993 conference final, then scored the winner?

Wayne Gretzky's stick cut Gilmour in Game 6, no penalty was called and he scored moments later; Toronto, one win from a Cup Final against Montreal, lost the series in seven.

A 1994 draft-day trade that sent the Leafs' captain to Quebec brought which future captain to Toronto?

Mats Sundin had been the first European drafted first overall; in 1997 he became the Leafs' first non-Canadian captain, and in 2026 he came back as a senior adviser in the front office.

The Leafs left Maple Leaf Gardens in February 1999 for a new arena that opened under what name?

Air Canada Centre kept that name until 2018, when it became Scotiabank Arena; the Gardens farewell was a loss to Chicago, the same team that had beaten the Leafs there on opening night in 1931.

After a decade sitting vacant, Maple Leaf Gardens reopened in 2011 with what occupying its lower floors?

A Loblaws supermarket opened on the ground floor in November 2011; a university rink was then built on the top level, so hockey is still played under the old roof.

The Leafs' polar bear mascot wears No. 60 and is named after which Toronto street?

Carlton Street, where Maple Leaf Gardens stood at No. 60, gave the bear both his name and his number when he arrived in 1995, four years before the team moved to Bay Street.

The Leafs lost the 2002 conference finals to which 'Cinderella' team?

Carolina Hurricanes reached their first Stanley Cup Final when Martin Gelinas scored the Game 6 winner, minutes after Toronto's captain had tied it with seconds left.

Whose three shutouts carried the Leafs past Ottawa in the first round in 2004?

Ed Belfour blanked Ottawa three times in the seven games, as Toronto knocked the Senators out of the playoffs for the fourth time in five springs.

In 2009 Brian Burke traded two first-round picks and a second to Boston for which winger?

Phil Kessel cost the first-round picks that Boston used on Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton; six years later the rebuilding Leafs traded him on to Pittsburgh.

Which president began a 'scorched earth' Leafs rebuild in 2015 and left in 2025?

Brendan Shanahan's teardown ended in a last-place finish and the lottery win that brought Auston Matthews; the club let him go after another playoff defeat in 2025.

In his 2016 NHL debut, Auston Matthews became the first player of the modern era to do what?

Score four goals he did, against Ottawa, and Toronto still lost in overtime; he finished the season with the Calder Trophy as the league's best rookie.

Whose Leafs record of 54 goals did Auston Matthews break in 2022?

Rick Vaive, the first Leaf to score 50 in a season, held the record for forty years; he also lost the captaincy in 1986 after sleeping through a morning practice.

Auston Matthews grew up in which Arizona city, attending Coyotes games from age two?

Scottsdale is no hockey heartland, and his route stayed unusual: instead of junior or college hockey, he spent his draft year playing as a professional in Zurich.

The Leafs signed which centre to a seven-year, $77 million deal in 2018 and named him captain in 2019?

John Tavares called signing with his boyhood team a childhood dream; he wore the C for five seasons before handing it to Auston Matthews in 2024.

The Leafs traded Mitch Marner in the 2025 off-season to which team?

Vegas Golden Knights sent centre Nicolas Roy the other way; at the next trade deadline Toronto moved Roy on to Colorado for a conditional first-round pick.

In 2026 the Leafs used the first overall pick in the NHL draft on which prospect?

Gavin McKenna, a winger from Penn State, was the prize for Toronto's worst season in a decade: last in its division, then winners of the draft lottery.

Which team's Game 7 win in 2025 left the Leafs' Cup drought at 57 seasons?

Florida Panthers won Game 7 in Toronto 6-1 and went on to win the Stanley Cup; the Leafs' wait, the longest in NHL history, goes back to 1967.

Until 2016 the Leafs 'honoured' greats' numbers, which meant what?

Still issued to new players: only two men whose careers were cut short had numbers truly retired, until the centennial season retired 17 more in one night.

The Leafs' first home for 14 seasons before Maple Leaf Gardens was which building?

Mutual Street Arena, also called Arena Gardens, had opened in 1912; by 1930 Conn Smythe thought it too small and too plain for his team and set about building a bigger home.

Conn Smythe paid Ottawa a then-unheard-of $35,000 and two players in 1930 for which star defenceman?

King Clancy cost a sum no club had paid for a player before, and repaid it quickly: in his second Toronto season he helped the Leafs win the Stanley Cup.

Why did Toronto's NHL team abandon the 1918-19 season with two games left to play?

It was broke and eliminated: legal bills from a feud with a former owner had forced the sale of its stars, and with the playoffs out of reach the five-win club simply stopped.

Which military band has opened Leafs home seasons since the Gardens' first night in 1931?

The 48th Highlanders of Canada Pipe and Drums were invited for the Gardens' first night and have missed only the locked-out 2004-05 season; in 1999 they led the parade from the Gardens to the new arena.

What is the name of the Leafs' AHL farm team, borrowed from a historic Toronto junior club?

Marlies was the fans' name for the Toronto Marlboros, a junior club tied to the Leafs for 62 years; the farm team adopted it on moving from St. John's in 2005.

As of 2026, Leafs regional broadcasts are split between Rogers and which other company?

BCE Inc., Bell's parent and the owner of TSN, sold its share of the Leafs' parent company to Rogers in 2025 but kept rights to half the team's regional games under a 20-year agreement.

Who was the Leafs' first play-by-play broadcaster, calling games on radio from 1927 to 1968?

Foster Hewitt gave hockey its best-known call, 'He shoots, he scores!'; his first broadcast of a game, in 1923, was spoken into an upright telephone.

The Leafs lost seven-game first-round series to which team in 2013, 2018 and 2019?

Boston Bruins won all three deciding games, the first after Toronto led 4-1 in the third period, and beat the Leafs in seven games once more in 2024.

Last overall in 1984-85, the Leafs used the first pick on which player?

Wendel Clark had been a star defenceman in junior; moved to the wing in Toronto, he led the team with 34 goals as a rookie on his way to the captaincy.

Which Leafs captain won the 1942 Lady Byng Trophy without taking a single penalty?

Syl Apps was an Olympic athlete before he was a Leaf: he competed for Canada in the pole vault at the 1936 Berlin Games, months before his first NHL season.

Which Swede, signed by the Leafs in 1973, stayed 16 seasons and reached the Hockey Hall of Fame?

Börje Salming came over with fellow Swede Inge Hammarström after Toronto sent scouts to Europe; his number 21 was among those the club retired in 2016.

Which Leaf was named playoff MVP and won the Conn Smythe Trophy in the 1967 championship run?

Dave Keon won the trophy named after the Leafs' own founder; in 2016, the club's centennial year, he was voted the greatest player in its history.

Who is the only goaltender to have captained the Leafs franchise?

John Ross Roach wore the C in 1924-25, when the club was still the St. Patricks, so the franchise's only goalie captain never captained a team called the Maple Leafs.

Who captained the Leafs for 12 seasons and four Stanley Cups, the longest tenure in team history?

George Armstrong, known as the Chief, also scored the empty-net goal that sealed the 1967 Cup, the last goal of the NHL's six-team era.

Which first-year NHL team hired Conn Smythe to run it in 1926, then fired him before playing a game?

New York Rangers replaced Smythe with Lester Patrick before their first game; his revenge came six years later, when his Leafs beat them in the 1932 Stanley Cup Final.

Which head coach earned a Leafs single-season record 115 points in 2021-22?

Sheldon Keefe's team also won a club-record 54 games that season, and still went out in the first round, beaten by Tampa Bay in seven.