He was the man behind the blue and white colours of the Maple Leafs, the name of the team itself, and guided it through two dynasty eras.
His name was Conn Smythe. While he was a hockey icon, he remains a divisive figure in the history of the NHL.
Constantine Falkland Carry Smythe was born in Toronto on Feb. 1, 1895 to Albert and Mary Smythe.
Of his ancestry, he stated,
“I was sired by an Irishman and damned by an Englishwoman. I’ve got my father’s fight and my mother’s common sense.”
Growing up, the family was poor and moved several times during Smythe’s early life. Sometimes the family did better than others, all depending on how much his father was making.
The marriage of his parents was a difficult one due to contrasting personalities. His father Albert was quiet and a vegetarian, while Mary was an alcoholic and troublemaker.
After his mother died in 1906, Smythe stayed away from alcohol for most of his life.
When he turned 11, Constantine insisted on being called Conn instead of his given name.
Eight years after the death of his mother, Conn’s father married Jane Anderson, which led to an estrangement between Conn and his father. When he was 17, he left home to homestead near Cochrane, Ontario. Within a few months, his home was destroyed by a fire.
Smythe returned to school following this hiccup in his life. At Jarvis Collegiate Institute he began to show his athletic abilities, playing rugby, basketball and hockey. In 1912, he played on championship teams in hockey and basketball in Toronto.
He captained the Varsity Blues men’s hockey team to the final in the 1914 Ontario Hockey Association, and the OHA junior championship the following year.
One week after winning the championship, he and eight teammates enlisted into the Canadian Army to fight in the First World War.
During training, Smythe rose to the rank of lieutenant and was sent over the France with his unit in February of 1916. On Oct. 12, 1916 his unit, the 40th Battery, was hit by shelling, killing both the Major and Sgt. Major of the unit, making Smythe the commanding officer.
For the next two months, his unit fought in the trenches at the Somme without relief. In February 1917, Smythe earned the Military Cross after running into a fight as Germans were throwing grenades. In the melee, he killed three Germans and saved several wounded Canadian soldiers. His citation read that he earned it for,
“dispersing an enemy party at a critical time. Himself accounted for three of the enemy with his revolver.”
In July 1917, Smythe transferred to the Royal Flying Corps. A few months after getting his pilot’s wings, he was shot down by the Germans on Oct. 14, 1917. Captured, he spent the remaining part of the war, despite two escape attempts, in a POW camp. In describing his life at the camp he said,
“We played so damned much bridge that I never played the game again.”
Upon returning to Toronto, Smythe started a sand and gravel business that he owned for the next four decades.
In 1920, he married his wife Irene while he was attending the University of Toronto and earning a civil engineering degree. After he earned his degree, Smythe began a paving company called C. Smythe Limited. It operated under the slogan of “C. Smythe for sand”. One of his first employees was Frank Selke.
While Smythe worked at his company during the day, he coached hockey in the evenings. It was through his coaching of the University of Toronto varsity team that he became involved in the NHL. In 1926, Charles Adams, the owner of the Boston Bruins, recommended Smythe to John S. Hammond as the general manager and coach for the new team entering the NHL, the New York Rangers.
Smythe put together a team that was stacked with excellent players. He brought in Bill and Bun Cook from the disbanded Saskatoon Sheiks. Frank Boucher came from the Vancouver Maroons, while Murray Murdoch came from the University of Manitoba. He also signed various players such as Taffy Abel, Billy Boyd and Ching Johnson. He also added Lorne Chabot from Port Arthur.
Of the players on that team, Bill Cook, Frank Boucher, Bun Cook and Ching Johnson wound up in the Hall of Fame.
Then he was unceremoniously fired before the Rangers played their first game. He was immediately replaced with Lester Patrick. As for why Smythe was fired, it was believed to be related to his refusal to sign Babe Dye to a two-year contract, citing him as not being a team player.
The president of Madison Square Garden Tex Rickard invited Smythe to the opening game at the new arena for the team. He turned it down but his wife convinced him to attend. When the Rangers won that game, Rickard offered Smythe the vice-presidency of the team. He turned it down again. Rickard then gave him the $2,500 he owed on Smythe’s contract. Smythe took that and bet on a Toronto and McGill football game. He won $5,000, which he then bet on the Rangers to beat the St. Pats in Toronto. He won again, which turned his original $2,500 into $10,000 in just three days.
Macleans wrote about him,
“Unlike many less successful gamblers, the man who built the Maple Leafs is not a creature of impulse, although he often pretends to be. Behind everything he does is a meticulous and calculating mind and away from the public view, in the confines of his richly, though conservatively, appointed office on the second floor of the Gardens, he becomes as fussily efficient as a bookkeeper.”
At the end of the 1926-27 season, the Rangers had won their division and were the last expansion team to do so without a guarantee of winning until the 2017-18 Vegas Golden Knights.
Two years after Smythe was fired, the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup with the roster he assembled.
Wanting to coach, he decided to continue to coach at the University of Toronto. Under his guidance, the Varsity Grads won the Allan Cup.
In 1927, Smythe was given the opportunity to purchase the Toronto St. Pats for $160,000. Not wanting to lose out on the opportunity, Smythe quickly put together a syndicate and invested $10,000 of his own money. He was able to purchase the team on Feb. 14, 1927. The first thing he did was change the team’s name to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Smythe made himself the general manager, while Alex Romeril was made coach. He also changed the team’s colours from green and white to white and blue to represent the Canadian skies and snow. Although these were the same colours he used for his trucking business, there may have been some cross promotion.
Known as the Little Dictator, Smythe developed feuds with other general managers. Once, when he learned that Art Ross, the general manager of the Boston Bruins, was suffering from hemorrhoids, he sent him flowers with a note written in Latin telling him where he could shove the flowers.
Conn Smythe was a great admirer of NHL star King Clancy and to gain the star, he paid $35,000, or $541,500 today, along with two players to bring Clancy to the Maple Leafs from the Ottawa Senators. The story of how Smythe was able to afford Clancy is a tale unto itself. The Leafs’ board of directors would only give him $25,000 to get Clancy, which was half what the Senators wanted. To get the money, Smythe entered a horse he had just bought for $250, Rare Jewell, into the stakes race at Woodbine. Smythe’s own horse trainer said Rare Jewell had no chance of winning, and she was a 107-to-one long shot. Amazingly, she won the race and netted Smythe $15,570. As he collected his winnings he turned to his friends and said, “Now I can buy King Clancy.”
That proved to be a good decision, as Clancy won the Stanley Cup with the Leafs in 1932 on his way to a legendary career.
In the nine years that Clancy played for Smythe, he never signed a contract. He said.
“He was a hard taskmaster. He gave no quarter, and he asked no quarter. I never did sign a contract in the nine years I was with him. A handshake was enough with Conn Smythe.”
Another big decision for Smythe was the hiring of Dick Irvin in 1931 as the new coach of the team. It was this legendary coach who turned the fortunes of the team around. The team went to the Stanley Cup every year that Irvin was coach, except for 1934 and 1937.
Just as The Great Depression was starting, Smythe decided that the team needed a new arena that could seat more people than their current arena.
At the time, the Maple Leafs were playing in Arena Gardens, which had been built in 1912 and could only hold 7,500 people. By 1930, Smythe was feeling that this arena was too small for his grand vision.
Over the course of the year, he began to look at various construction sites until he found one at Carlton and Church, which he bought from the Timothy Eaton Company for $350,000, or $6 million today. This may seem like a lot, but it was $150,000 below the market value. The site was also where William Lyon Mackenzie and his rebels fought the Canadian and British militia during the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837.
Smythe then went to Ross and Macdonald, an architectural firm, to build his new 12,473 seat arena.
The construction was not going to be cheap and to finance it, Smythe created Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd., which continues to own the Maple Leafs, as well as the Toronto Raptors, Toronto Argos and Toronto FC. Now called Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, it is the largest sports and entertainment company in Canada.
A public offering of shares in the new company became available at $10 each, or $170 today, with a free share for every five shares bought. Ownership of the Maple Leafs was transferred to the company in return for shares
Smythe hired W.A. Hewitt to be the general manager of Maple Leaf Gardens. His role was to oversee events other than hockey, something that would become very profitable in the 1960s and beyond as the biggest bands in the world started to play the arena.
Hewitt’s son, Foster, who had just begun to be the voice of hockey in Toronto, was hired to run the radio broadcasts. He oversaw the radio broadcast facilities, including a special area for him to broadcast the games out of called The Gondala.
The Thompson Brothers Construction company bid $990,000 to build the arena, the lowest of the 10 bidders. They were able to bid lower because they also owned an excavation company and a lumber company, thereby cutting costs. Not included in the price was $100,000 for steel work.
Smythe saved money on building the arena through deals he made with labour unions to provide them with shares in the company. Employees received stock to cover 20 per cent of their pay. Those shares were worth 50 cents each in 1935, and $100 each in 1947.
At midnight on June 1, 1931, construction began. The Montreal Star reported:
“The final obstacle in the path of constructing the new sports stadium has been hurdled. Announcement has been made that the contract for the erection of Maple Leaf Gardens, future home of professional hockey in Toronto, has been granted at a special meeting of directors.”
The cornerstone was laid on Sept. 22, 1931 by Lt. Governor W.D. Ross as the directors of Maple Leaf Gardens watched.
The Kingston Whig-Standard wrote of the construction quote:
“With the vast new Maple Leaf Gardens nearing completion, Toronto fans are taking keen interest in the structure and also in the team that will wear local colors this coming year.”
As part of construction, a time capsule was buried, which was opened in January 2012.
After five months and two weeks, at a cost of $1.5 million, or $27 million today, Maple Leaf Gardens was finished and ready to become a hockey cathedral. In all, the structure used 750,000 bricks, 850,000 board feet of lumber and 22.5 kilometres of underground piping to keep the ice surface cool.
With King Clancy, a strong team and a new arena, Smythe then attempted to get Howie Morenz from the Canadiens for $75,000. This was rejected by Montreal.
Throughout his management of the team, Smythe was a stickler for his players wearing suits and ties at home and away games and practices. He told them that they were businessmen, and they should dress as such. He also didn’t allow hockey sweaters in the stands at Maple Leaf Gardens, and had ushers walk through the building making sure everyone was dressed nicely.
In 1940, Smythe decided it was time for a new coach and Hap Day was hired, while Irvin would be hired by the Canadiens. Day led the Maple Leafs to the Stanley Cup in 1942, 1945 and from 1947 to 1949.
Smythe suggested to the Montreal Canadiens that they hire Irvin as their new coach. He went on to win three more Stanley Cup as a coach with the Canadiens.
When the Second World War began, Smythe again served in the Canadian Army again, this time as a captain. He also circulated a letter to all Maple Leafs players instructing them to sign up immediately with a non-permanent militia unit and get their military training in as soon as possible.
He stated,
“You might be wanted immediately; you might be wanted for a comparatively long time.”
He formed the 30th Battery, a sportsmen’s anti-aircraft battery. He was also made an acting major. He served on the west coast of Vancouver Island, then spent two years in England and went to France in 1944 with his unit. While there, he was wounded when an ammunition depot he was near was bombed.
This led him to suffer a limp and bowel and urinary tract problems for the rest of his life.
Upon his return to Canada, he criticized the Canadian military, stating it was using improperly trained troops that led to unnecessary casualties.
He stated in a release,
“The reinforcements now are green, inexperienced and poorly trained. Large numbers of unnecessary casualties result from this greenness, both to the rookies and to the other soldiers who have the added task of trying to look after the newcomers as well as themselves.”
Defence Minister James Ralston responded that he would look into the claims.
While Smythe was away in Europe, the Maple Leafs were run by Ed Bickle, Bill MacBrien and Frank Selke. When he returned, Smythe found himself in the middle of a power struggle for his team between these men, but especially his old employee Frank Selke.
To cement his power, on Nov. 19, 1947, using a $300,000 loan, he bought a controlling interest in Maple Leafs Gardens Ltd. and made himself president.
From 1942 to 1951, Smythe oversaw a Toronto team that won six Stanley Cups.
A major reason for this was that Smythe developed a farm system that ensured a steady succession of young players coming to the team as older player retired. He also pioneered the use of film as a coaching aid.
The Maple Leafs hit hard times in the 1950s, and Smythe went through three different coaches.
Jack Batten said of Smythe,
“Smythe’s philosophy was simple. He was honest and he worked hard. He expected no less from the rest of the world. The only trouble was that he performed in the hockey world with more terrifying honesty and more prodigious industry than any other hundred men. He was perhaps the only man in and out of hockey who could approve his own lofty standards.”
Throughout the 1950s, as his leg injury began to bother him more in the cold, it was not unusual to see him show up at the Gardens wearing fur line boots and a fur coat. In the dead of winter, he travelled to Palm Beach and ran the club from there, while flying back for important games.
He also took a hands-on approach with everything at Maple Leaf Gardens. Every so often, he would go to the food booths to sample the hot dogs and soft drinks to make sure they were top grade, despite disliking both.
By the end of the 1950s, Smythe turned over operations of the team to a seven-person committee led by his son Stafford and Harold Ballard. Eventually, Smythe would step down as governor of the team, a position he held since 1927, on Feb. 5, 1962. He sold 45,000 of his 50,000 shares in the business to his son and Ballard for $2.3 million.
Smythe was granted a $15,000 annual allowance by the board, an office at Maple Leaf Gardens, and a car and driver for the rest of his life.
In 1964, Smythe was heavily opposed to the creation of a new Canadian flag. He wrote to Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson and said,
“In the Olympic Games, the whole world is represented and when Canada sometimes wins a Gold Medal everybody knows, when the Red Ensign is raised to the masthead, that Canada has won.”
In 1965, he tried to have only the Red Ensign flown at Maple Leaf Gardens, but this was overruled by Harold Ballard.
That same year, the Conn Smythe Trophy was created by the NHL, given to the MVP of the playoffs. In 1974, the Smythe Division was named for him and would remain in his name until 1992. In 1998, Smythe was inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame and was inducted into the Hockey
In 1966, Smythe resigned from the board of directors after a Muhammad Ali boxing match was held at the Gardens. Smythe disliked Ali because he refused to serve in the Vietnam War. Smythe would write later:
“The Gardens was founded by men, sportsmen, who fought for their country. It is no place for those who want to evade conscription in their own country. The Gardens was built for many things, but not for picking up things that no one else wanted.”
He soon had a falling out with his son Stafford. When his son was charged with fraud in 1971 and became ill with a stomach ulcer, Conn was at the hospital with him. His son died there with Conn by his side.
For years after he sold the team, he still gave advice to Harold Ballard, who took over the team throughout the 1970s.
On April 20, 1978, Smythe suffered a heart attack. He spent a month in the hospital, but his health was declining.
He died at the age of 85 in 1980.
The Niagara Falls Review wrote,
“The generation of grandfathers in Canada can’t forget how in their youth, the name Conn Smythe was synonymous with hockey. The part he performed in making hockey Canada’s national game is legend.”
At his funeral, 2,000 attended at St. Paul’s Anglican Church.
The pallbearers at his funeral were Ted Kennedy, Hap Day, Syl Apps, Jim Thompson, Sid Smith, Dave Keon, Bob Davidson and Darryl Sittler, all captains of the Maple Leafs at one point or another.
But there was much more to Smythe than just hockey.
In 1945, he was a founding director of the Canadian Paraplegic Association. He often gave generous amounts of his time and money to help the organization and even housed its offices at Maple Leaf Gardens. He was also involved in the Ontario Society for Crippled Children and organized the construction of the Variety Club Village in Toronto.
Along with his career with hockey, he had a great deal of success with horses. His horses won the Queen’s Plate three times. In all, his horses won 145 stakes races during his life time. He said,
“I’ve always found that a man who is good to dumb animals is an okay guy.”
