Maple Leaf Gardens: The Building That Shaped a Century of Hockey

Some arenas host a team. Maple Leaf Gardens hosted eleven Stanley Cup championships, a Beatles concert, a heavyweight title fight, and a Cold War hockey summit, all inside a building that was thrown up in five months during the worst economic downturn of the 20th century. Few buildings anywhere have packed in that much history. Here's how it got built, what it saw, and how it lives on today.

Built in Five Months, During the Depression

Conn Smythe wanted a new arena for his Toronto Maple Leafs, and he wanted it fast. In 1931, with the Great Depression choking off conventional financing, Smythe raised the money through Maple Leaf Gardens Limited, a public company selling shares at ten dollars each, and got the building constructed in five months and two weeks for roughly $1.5 million (close to $30 million in today's dollars). It opened with room for 12,473 fans, expandable to 14,550 with standing room, an astonishing feat of speed and financing for a project built when money for anything was scarce.

Eleven Stanley Cups Under One Roof

The building delivered almost immediately: the Maple Leafs won their first Stanley Cup in the Gardens' debut season, 1931-32, and went on to win eleven championships there over the decades that followed. By 1968, seat-narrowing and added galleries had pushed capacity to 16,485, and Maple Leaf Gardens had become one of hockey's defining venues, the building where an entire era of the Original Six and beyond played out.

By the numbers: built in 5 months, 2 weeks; 11 Stanley Cup championships won there; capacity grew from roughly 12,500 at opening to 16,485 by 1968; 68 years as the Maple Leafs' home before the final game on February 13, 1999.

More Than a Hockey Rink

Maple Leaf Gardens wasn't only a hockey building. It hosted the first unofficial NHL All-Star Game in 1934. Elvis Presley played his first shows outside the United States there on April 2, 1957. The Beatles performed at the Gardens multiple times between 1964 and 1966. Muhammad Ali fought George Chuvalo there in 1966. And in September 1972, the Gardens hosted Game 2 of the Summit Series, the historic Canada-USSR showdown that gripped the entire country. Few arenas anywhere have hosted that range of history under one roof.

The Final Game, and a Decade of Silence

The Maple Leafs played their last game at the Gardens on February 13, 1999, a 6-2 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks that closed out 68 years as the franchise's home. What followed was almost as notable as what came before: the building sat largely vacant for nearly a decade, as its ownership group blocked competing uses rather than let it become another team's arena.

Watch: The Final Game at Maple Leaf Gardens

Here's a look back at the Leafs' last game in the building, and the closing ceremony that followed it.

A Second Life

In 2004, Loblaw Companies bought the building for $12 million, and after years of renovation, Maple Leaf Gardens reopened in 2011 as something genuinely unusual: a grocery store on the lower levels, with an ice rink, the Mattamy Athletic Centre, seating close to 2,800 built above it and operated by what's now Toronto Metropolitan University. It's not the same building fans packed to watch eleven championships, but the bones of Maple Leaf Gardens, and the ice inside it, are still there.

About ZippyBack

ZippyBack™ is a patented, serialized wearable collectible that snaps onto the strap or side of a cap, officially licensed by the NHL Alumni Association and minted in Canada. Wear it, collect it, showcase it, trade it, or gift it: a different era of hockey history for every ZippyBack™ you add to your collection. Browse the full lineup of officially licensed NHL Alumni Association players who spent their careers with the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Toronto collection.

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