Maple Leaf Gardens was built in the middle of the Great Depression over the summer months in 1931.  Construction began on June 1st and was finished in mid-October.  To this day, it is considered a marvel of construction that this building was put together so fast.  Conn Smythe and his assistant, Frank Selke, in the middle of the Great Depression managed to get blood (money) from a stone (bankers) to build the Gardens.  How they went about doing it is an interesting story indeed.

Smythe purchased the Toronto St. Patricks in 1927 for $160,000.  He accumulated this by gambling some of his $10,000 severance pay from the New York Rangers and convincing the previous owner to leave some money in the team.  He immediately renamed the club the Toronto Maple Leafs, and introduced the blue-and-white colors sill worn today.

Both men had an eye for talent, and quickly built a contender.  However, despite their on-ice success, there was no way to turn a profit in the Mutual Street arena that they were playing in.  Smythe realized that he needed to build a new arena, but he was in a conundrum as he did not have the wealth to finance it.  At the time, Frank Selke produced a program that for the Leafs that sold for ten cents.  He had Foster Hewitt broadcast it over the air, hoping to sell a few thousand copies.  Instead, they received over 91,000 requests.  This convinced the bankers that there was interest in hockey and to loosen the purse strings.

However, there was still a snag.  When Smythe and Selke received the estimates for the building, they found that they were still several hundred thousand dollars short.  Selke, however, had an idea.  He made personal pitches to all 24 unions and offered them 20% stock options in the new building that would be christened Maple Leafs Gardens.  He convinced them that receiving 80% of their salaries in cash as opposed to waiting in the unemployment line was better in hard times such as these.  When the unions agreed, the bankers coughed up more money which allowed construction to commence.  Selke later stated that had times been good, and jobs not as scarce, the unions would never have agreed to their plan.

When the Gardens opened, it attracted a who’s-who of Toronto society.  The Leafs lost to the Chicago Blackhawks by a score of 2-1, yet went on to win the Stanley Cup that year.  It was sweet revenge for Conn Smythe, who was still furious and bitter that the New York Rangers let him go.

From World War II up until its closure in 1999, the Toronto Maple Leafs sold out every home game.  Through the great teams of the ’40′s, 50′s, and ’60′s to the horrid teams of the ’80′s, the people kept coming.  Smythe, ever the entrepreneur, opened the building up to weekly professional wrestling contests and concerts.  He sold his interest in the Gardens in the late 1950′s to a consortium led by his son, Stafford.