April 9, 1932: Conn Smythe sees his ambition fulfilled, as his Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup.
With a name like Constantine Falkland Cary Smythe, he would be expected to be ambitious. He was born on February 1, 1895, 5 days before baseball legend Babe Ruth, in Toronto, the capital of Ontario, the largest Province in Canada, and the largest city in Canada. His father was from Ireland, but a Protestant and a Unionist. And so, as we would say today, Conn Smythe identified as British, not Irish. His mother was an alcoholic, which inspired his later teetotalism and moralism.
At Jarvis Collegiate Institute, he led the hockey and basketball teams to city high school championships, and also played rugby. He led the hockey team at the University of Toronto to the Ontario Hockey Association junior championship in 1915, beating the Berlin Union Jacks, coached by Frank Selke. He also played football there.
A week after winning that title, he and 8 of his teammates enlisted in the Canadian Army, to fight for the British Empire in World War I. His commanding officer was killed at the Battle of the Somme, and he was given command. Lieutenant Smythe was awarded the Military Cross for heroism in March 1917, but in October, having transferred to the Royal Flying Corps -- the Royal Canadian Air Force was founded in 1924 -- he was shot down, and held in a German prisoner-of-war camp for over a year, until the Armistice. Twice, he tried and failed to escape, and ended up in solitary confinement for a time.
Returning from the war, he married Irene Sands, and started a sand and gravel business, his trucks painted blue with white lettering. He hired former opponent Frank Selke. Together, they coached the University of Toronto team, and they frequently traveled to the Boston area for games.
Their wins there got the attention of Boston Bruins owner Charles Adams. In 1926, Adams recommended him to another WWI veteran, Colonel John S. Hammond, who was running the new New York Rangers franchise for Tex Rickard and the Madison Square Garden Corporation. Smythe was hired to put the team together, but was fired before ever coaching a game. Hammond wanted to sign 2-time NHL scoring Champion Cecil "Babe" Dye, but Smythe refused, saying Dye was not a team player, and let him get away to one of the other new NHL teams, the Chicago Black Hawks.
(Smythe may have had a point: Dye scored 25 goals that season, but only another 12 for the rest of his career. Ironically, his last season was in 1930-31, with Smythe.)
That made Smythe available. One of the NHL's founding teams in 1917 was the Toronto Arenas, winners of the 1918 Stanley Cup. In 1922, with Dye, they won the Cup again, this time as the Toronto St. Patricks, their team name and green uniforms reflecting Toronto's large Irish community.
On February 14, 1927, Smythe put together a group that bought the St. Patricks, including with $10,000 of his own money. Ever the patriot, and ignoring his own Irish heritage, Smythe changed the team's name to the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the colors to blue and white, saying blue for the Canadian sky and white for snow. Those in the know knew about his trucks. Smythe talked the group into making him the team's "governor," which is the NHL's term for the operator of a team. He named himself head coach and general manager, and ran the team like a dictator.
Knowing that the Mutual Street Arena was selling out, and that new arenas had recently been built in New York, Boston, Montreal, Detroit and Chicago, Smythe wanted a bigger building for his Maple Leafs, and got backing from Sun Life insurance company. Maple Leaf Gardens opened on November 12, 1931, and, although the Leafs lost to the Black Hawks, 2-1, the new arena was a smashing success. Maple Leaf Gardens, Ltd. (MLGL) was founded as the company running the arena and the team.
Smythe had stepped back from coaching, letting Dick Irvin Sr. do that, so he could run the building of the team and the building of the arena, and the team he built was worthy of the arena. In goal was Lorne Chabot, from the Ranger team that won the 1928 Stanley Cup. On defense were Frank "King" Clancy from the Ottawa Senators' 4 Cup winners of the 1920s, Reginald "Red" Horner (a noted tough guy who nonetheless scored the 1st goal at the Gardens), Alex Levinsky, and team Captain Clarence "Hap" Day (short for "Happy Day").
The offense was led by the "Kid Line." Right wing Charlie Conacher, younger brother of multi-sport star Lionel Conacher, was just 22 at the time of the 1932 Stanley Cup Playoffs. He was known as the 1st great hockey player to wear uniform Number 9, presaging such legends as Maurice Richard, Gordie Howe and Bobby Hull. At left wing was Harvey "Busher" Jackson, just 21. At center, and a comparative veteran at 26, was "Gentleman Joe" Primeau.
The Kid Line. Left to right: Charlie Conacher,
Joe Primeau and Harvey Jackson.
Also in attack were Irvine "Ace" Bailey, and Frank Finnigan, who was with Clancy on the Senators' 1927 Cup winners. All of these players, except for Chabot and Finnigan, went on to be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame, as would Smythe and Irvin.
Smythe had the team, and he had the arena. Now, he needed the title to go along with it. The Leafs finished the regular season 2nd in the NHL's Canadian Division, to the 2-time defending Champion Montreal Canadiens. They beat the Black Hawks in the Quarterfinals, and the Montreal Maroons in the Semifinals.
The Finals would be against the Rangers, and a best-3-out-of-5. That turned out not to be necessary, as the Leafs won in 3 straight: 6-4, 6-2 and 6-4, the scores resembling a tennis tournament's final more than a hockey series. Jackson scored 5 goals, including a hat trick in Game 1 in New York; Conacher, 3; Clancy and Andy Blair, 2 each; Day, Horner, Finnigan, Bob Gracie and Harold "Baldy" Cotton, 1 each.
Smythe's 11-year-old son, Stafford Smythe, was a team mascot, and he became the youngest person ever to have his name engraved on the Stanley Cup. He later served as president of the Maple Leafs from 1958 to 1970.
Under Smythe's rule, and Day's coaching, the Leafs won the Cup again in 1942, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1949 and 1951. Stars of this dynasty included Sylvanus "Syl" Apps, Ted "Teeder" Kennedy, and goaltender Walter "Turk" Broda. During World War II, Smythe enlisted again, rising to the rank of Major, and was badly wounded in a German bombing of an ammunition depot in France, causing him health issues for the rest of his life.
He was a tyrant. He sent players down to the minor leagues for being part of the organization of the NHL's first players' union. He sent 2 players down to the minors for getting married without his permission -- during the off-season.
In 1961, he sold the Maple Leafs to a group known as the Silver Seven, all rich men who had been "born with a silver spoon in his mouth." The Seven included his son, Stafford. But it also included Harold Ballard. Although the Leafs, under coach and GM George "Punch" Imlach, won 4 Stanley Cups in 6 years from 1962 to 1967, the seeds of the franchise's long decline had been sown before the title team was even put together.
Smythe remained a patriot. In 1964, when Canada's Parliament approved replacing the Red Ensign, under which Smythe had fought 2 World Wars, with the new Maple Leaf Flag, Smythe ended his 40-year friendship with Prime Minister Lester Pearson, and ordered that the old flag continue to fly at the Gardens. But he was no longer in position to give such an order, and was told that calls were 3 to 1 in favor of the new flag.
In 1966, Smythe sold his remaining shares in MLGL, and resigned from the board of directors, after a Heavyweight Championship fight between Muhammad Ali and Canaadian champion George Chuvalo was set for the Gardens. Ali had already said that, were he to be drafted into the U.S. Army, he would refuse induction. (That did happen, the following year.) Smythe said that the owners had "put cash ahead of class."
He supervised the construction of the original Hockey Hall of Fame Building in 1961, at Exhibition Place in Toronto. He served as the Hall's chairman, but resigned in 1971 when Busher Jackson was posthumously elected into the Hall. Smythe said that it made him "sick" to think of Jackson alongside such Leafs as "Apps, Primeau, Conacher, Clancy and Kennedy. If the standards are going to be lowered, I'll get out as chairman of the board." Jackson was notorious for his off-ice lifestyle of drinking and broken marriages, and his boozing killed him in 1966, at age 55. Frank Selke, head of the selection committee, defended the selection on the belief that a man should not be shut out "because of the amount of beer he drank."
Smythe never removed the large portrait of Canada's head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, from one end of the Gardens, to put in more seats. Ballard did that. When asked about it, Ballard mentioned his taxes: "She doesn't pay me. I pay her. Besides, what the hell position can a queen play?"
As it turned out, he didn't pay her, or the Pearson government in Ottawa -- not enough, anyway. In 1969, Ballard and Stafford Smythe were charged with tax evasion, and accused of using MLG Ltd. to pay for their personal expenses. Ballard bought the last of the Smythe family's shares, but spent time in prison for tax evasion. Stafford might have, as well, had he not died of cancer in 1971. The last time he saw his father, he said, "See, Dad? They were never going to get me."
Always mindful of the well-being of his fellow veterans, in 1945, he helped establish and was a founding director of the Canadian Paraplegic Association, now known as Spinal Cord Injury Ontario. In 1965, following his wife's death from cancer, he founded the Irene Eleanor Smythe Pain Clinic at Toronto General Hospital. Late in life, he became heavily involved in the Ontario Society for Crippled Children and the Ontario Community Centre for the Deaf.
Conn Smythe died on November 18, 1980, in Toronto, at the age of 85. His son Hugh had become one of Canada's most renowned doctors. Stafford's son Thomas Smythe took up running the Conn Smythe Charitable Foundation, and his son, named Hugh Smythe for his uncle, runs it now.
In 1965, the NHL established the Conn Smythe Trophy, to be awarded to the Most Valuable Player of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It was renamed the Conn Smythe Memorial Trophy after his death, but people tend to call it simply "The Conn Smythe."
It features a brass model of Maple Leaf Gardens, topped with a large maple leaf. The names of past winners are inscribed on maple leaves on the trophy's base. With some irony, the 1st winner was the Captain of the Leafs' arch-rivals, the Montreal Canadiens: Jean Béliveau. With the Leafs not having even reached the Finals since their 1967 Cup win, only 1 of their players has ever won it: Dave Keon, in that 1967 season.
In 1974, the NHL expanded, and realigned its divisions, naming them for legendary NHL "builders": Lester Patrick of the New York Rangers, Charles Adams of the Boston Bruins, James Norris of the Detroit Red Wings, and Conn Smythe of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The division containing the westernmost teams, which had the least amount of history -- only the Chicago Black Hawks preceded the 1967 expansion -- had to be named after somebody, and it was named the Smythe Division.
This wasn't completely odd, though: During World War II, Smythe had commanded a unit defending Vancouver Island from a Japanese attack that was expected, but never came. Following the expansions of the early 1990s, another realignment in 1993 retired the Patrick, Adams, Norris and Smythe Division names.
In 1998, Maple Leaf Gardens, Ltd. was rebranded as Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE). It owns the Scotiabank Arena, which replaced the Gardens in 1999, and the teams that play there, the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs and the NBA's Toronto Raptors; BMO Field, and the teams that play there, the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts and Major League Soccer's Toronto FC, plus TFC's top farm team, Toronto FC II; the Leafs' top farm team, the Toronto Marlies, formerly the Toronto Marlboroughs, and their arena, the Coca-Cola Coliseum; the Raptors' top farm team, Raptors 905 of the NBA G League; the Ford Performance Centre, the practice facility for the Leafs and the Marlies; the OVO Athletic Centre, the practice facility for the Raptors; and Lamport Stadium, home of the Canada national rugby team, and the Argonauts' practice facility.
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April 9, 1932 was a Saturday. Carl Perkins, the guitarist whose song "Blue Suede Shoes" made him one of the founding fathers of rock and roll, was born.
This was also the day the original version of the film Scarface premiered. I have a separate entry for that event.
Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. And the NBA hadn't been founded yet. So there were no other scores in North American major league sports.
In English soccer, Liverpool hosted North London team Arsenal at Anfield, and won, 2-1.
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