The oldest and most famous arena in the National Hockey League has a history as rich as th team that has called it home for 67 years. Here are 100 memorable people and events in Gardens lore: the first NBA game, circuses, ice shows and orators. Includes fascinating trivia about the Gardens and a list of every event since 1931.
While the story of the Toronto Maple Leafs has been told many times, there has never been a full biography of the man who created, built and managed the team, turning it from a small-market collection of second-rate players into the hockey and financial powerhouse that dominated Canadian sports and created a collection of Canadian icons along the way. From the 1920s to the mid-1960s, Conn Smythe was one of the best-known, highest-profile figures in the country -- irascible, tempestuous, outspoken, and controversial. He not only constructed a hockey team that dominated the league for long stretches, but was critical to the growth and shaping of the NHL itself. By building Maple Leaf Gardens and hiring Foster Hewitt to fill Canada's living rooms with weekly broadcasts, he turned Saturday night into hockey night, creating institutions and habits that became central to Canada's character and remain with us today. Smythe's story is much deeper and richer than the tale of a cantankerous hockey owner. Smythe fought in both world wars, fighting at Ypres and Passchendaele in the first war and landing at Normandy in the second. He was wounded in both and spent two years as a POW in a German camp after being shot down in 1917. He grew up in poverty and vowed to escape the life that was so incredibly hard on his family. Smythe was active in politics and ignited a national crisis over conscription that split the Liberal government in two and brought Mackenzie King to the brink of resignation. This book tells the life of one of the country's great characters, a man who helped shape and define us and who left behind national habits and institutions that continue to lay at the heart of what makes Canada, Canada.
Nominated for the 2019 Toronto Heritage Book Award We may never see a playoff series like it again. Before Gary Bettman, and the lockouts. Before all the NHL's old barns were torn down to make way for bigger, glitzier rinks. Before expansion and parity across the league, just about anything could happen on the ice. And it often did. It was an era when huge personalities dominated the sport; and willpower was often enough to win games. And in the spring of 1993, some of the biggest talents and biggest personalities were on a collision course. The Cinderella Maple Leafs had somehow beaten the mighty Red Wings and then, just as improbably, the St. Louis Blues. Wayne Gretzky's Kings had just torn through the Flames and the Canucks. When they faced each other in the conference final, the result would be a series that fans still talk about passionately 25 years later. Taking us back to that feverish spring, The Last Good Year gives an intimate account not just of an era-defining seven games, but of what the series meant to the men who were changed by it: Marty McSorley, the tough guy who took his whole team on his shoulders; Doug Gilmour, the emerging superstar; celebrity owner Bruce McNall; Bill Berg, who went from unknown to famous when the Leafs claimed him on waivers; Kelly Hrudey, the Kings' goalie who would go on to become a Hockey Night in Canada broadcaster; Kerry Fraser, who would become the game's most infamous referee; and two very different captains, Toronto's bull in a china shop, Wendel Clark, and the immortal Wayne Gretzky. Fast-paced, authoritative, and galvanized by the same love of the game that made the series so unforgettable, The Last Good Year is a glorious testament to a moment hockey fans will never forget.
Lois Ehlert uses watercolor collage and pieces of actual seeds, fabric, wire, and roots in this innovative and rich introduction to the life of a tree. A special glossary explains how roots absorb nutrients, what photosynthesis is, how sap circulates, and other facts about trees. "Children will beg to share this book over and over."--American Bookseller
The Toronto Maple Leafs have not won a Stanley cup since 1967—a burden that long-suffering fans have regrettably had to bear. Ron Bailey, the new director of player personnel for the Leafs, is more than frustrated with his beloved team, who last won the prestigious title when he was just three. Unfortunately, Ron worries that the cynical Canadian fans and media who fear it may be another forty years before the Leafs win another one might be right. Just as he is about to give up hope, Bailey accidentally uncovers a possible reason for the Leafs’ long drought—a curse that has been supposedly placed on the team by the father of Dale McCaine, a former player who, due to tragic circumstances, never had the opportunity to play for a cup. As Bailey’s curiosity peaks, he asks for a meeting with the feisty and feeble Doug McCaine—who asks for a second chance for his deceased son to play for the Stanley Cup in Maple Leaf Gardens. Only then will he lift his curse. In this sports adventure, a young hockey director must orchestrate the game of the century as the spirits of former Leafs’ greats to band together to help a player’s dreams come true.
From its unfathomable construction in the grip of the Great Depression to its closing in 1999 and its current status as Ryerson University’s Mattamy Athletic Centre, this lush, nostalgic history captures the former Maple Leaf Gardens hockey arena in all its glory. With a compelling narrative from the Toronto Maple Leafs’ official photographer Graig Abel, and Toronto Sun hockey reporter Lance Hornby, more than 240 color photos form a documentary that is the definitive chronicle of the team’s former venue. Beginning with team manager Conn Smythe’s dream of building a landmark arena of the likes of the New York Rangers’ in midtown Manhattan and opening night on November 12, 1931, against the Chicago Blackhawks through more than 2,500 games and a myriad of other sports matches, concerts, and events—performances by Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, and the Beatles; election rallies held by Prime Ministers William Lyon Mackenzie King and Pierre Trudeau; and the historic bout between Muhammad Ali and George Chuvalo—this work details the storied saga of Toronto’s once premier showcase. Views of the edifice over the years and shots of the many events and the audiences who attended are among the book’s never-before-seen photos.
Jake’s drive to become a hockey star is matched only by his father’s obsessive determination to see his son succeed. No matter how hard Jake works, how many pucks he puts in the net, it’s never enough for his dad. Battered, bruised and tired of being afraid, Jake leaves his quiet suburban home in the middle of the night and runs away to downtown Toronto, where he finds comfort and safety in the most unexpected of places—the company of a homeless man with a storied past living inside the shuttered Maple Leaf Gardens.
In this eloquent plea for compassion and respect for all species, journalist and gardener Nancy Lawson describes why and how to welcome wildlife to our backyards. Through engaging anecdotes and inspired advice, profiles of home gardeners throughout the country, and interviews with scientists and horticulturalists, Lawson applies the broader lessons of ecology to our own outdoor spaces. Detailed chapters address planting for wildlife by choosing native species; providing habitats that shelter baby animals, as well as birds, bees, and butterflies; creating safe zones in the garden; cohabiting with creatures often regarded as pests; letting nature be your garden designer; and encouraging natural processes and evolution in the garden. The Humane Gardener fills a unique niche in describing simple principles for both attracting wildlife and peacefully resolving conflicts with all the creatures that share our world.
In 1967 the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup in a stunning defeat of the mighty Montreal Canadiens in Canada’s centennial year. Thirty-nine years later (and counting), no other Leaf team has been able to do it again. As the years pass, the legend grows. The men who were the Leafs in 1967--a scrappy group of aging players and unsung youngsters--were the kings of this universe, the last hockey heroes to skate in the world's most important hockey city. They were the men with the right stuff who enjoyed the perks and privileges that went with it. Sixty-Seven is not just another hockey book about that legendary team, but a unique and total look at the contradictions, the legends, the shame and the glory of '67. Within five years of that '67 victory, two key members of the team, Tim Horton and Terry Sawchuk, would be dead due to alcohol and drug-related issues. The man who had succeeded Smythe as King of Carlton Street, Harold Ballard, was in jail. The seeds of what would become a horrifying pedophile scandal a quarter-century later were being planted. All that had been built up over the course of decades was in the process of being torn down. Sixty-Seven will tell previously untold stories, funny and tragic, from the inside of that unforgettable dressing room. And beyond the story of the team, it will tell the story of the times, a time of innocence before Vietnam and Watergate, the last year of the Original Six-Team NHL, and the last gasp of the hockey dynasty built by the legendary Conn Smythe. The story of Sixty-Seven extends well beyond that of a hockey team that found a way to win.