In 1927, after having just been fired by the Rangers, Conn Smythe took the winnings from a horse race and bought the Toronto St. Pats hockey team, renaming them the Maple Leafs.
Impressed with how brilliantly Canadians had fought in the First World War, Smythe named his new team after the soldiers’ maple leaf insignia.
Smythe is the man who said of hockey, “If you can’t beat them in the alley, you can’t beat them on the ice.”
