X-Nico

4 unusual facts about Maple Leaf Gardens


1975 NASL Indoor tournament

The Soviets beat an outmatched NASL All-Star team 8-4 on February 7 at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens.

Behind the Blue Line

The team is called to a shooting at an old hockey arena, The Godwin Coliseum (Maple Leaf Gardens), after the owner of the property, who plans to demolish it and build two skyrises is shot.

Neil Cohalan

The game, a November 1, 1946 contest between the Knickerbockers and the Toronto Huskies played in famed Maple Leaf Gardens, was won 68-66 by the Knickerbockers.

Who Are You

"Who Are You" was the first of the album's songs to have a live performance, its first dating to a concert from the band's 1976 tour at the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, ON, albeit in a very raw and abbreviated version extremely different from the finished product.


1973–74 Toronto Toros season

The Toros originally planned to move the team into a renovated CNE Coliseum, while Bill Ballard, the son of Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard and was running Maple Leaf Gardens due to his father being in prison, was opposed of the renovation and wanted the team to play in the Gardens.

48th Highlanders of Canada

The regiment's Military Band and the Pipes and Drums have played at every Toronto Maple Leafs home opening game at both Maple Leaf Gardens and the Air Canada Centre.

Curse of 1940

Hence, the Rangers used Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto as their "home ice" in the 1950 Stanley Cup Finals, a move that potentially cost the Rangers that year's Stanley Cup.

George Zaharias

Often cast as a villain or sore loser, one of his most celebrated bouts was a 1932 match with Jim Londos at a sold-out Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, which Londos won.

Jocelyn Thibault

He has the distinction of being the winning goaltender of the last game at the Montreal Forum, Maple Leaf Gardens and the Capital Centre.

Merchandise Building

The Merchandise Building was one of the first large redevelopment projects east of Yonge Street, and has sparked other projects in the area such as the conversion of the Toronto RCMP Building into a luxury hotel, the old CBC building on Jarvis Street into condominiums and the new headquarters of the National Ballet School, and the storied Maple Leaf Gardens into a Loblaws supermarket and Ryerson University athletic centre.


see also

Charlie Conacher

In return for Black Hawk Johnny Gottselig, whom Smythe coveted, Chicago asked for Conacher and star defenceman King Clancy for compensation, to which Smythe reportedly cabled that Santa Claus lived at the North Pole, not in Maple Leaf Gardens.

Dick Hutton

On November 14, 1957, in Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens 10,000 people saw Hutton beat Thesz for the belt after 35:15, when Thesz submitted to an abdominal stretch.