Kelly McParland - The Lives of Conn Smythe: From the Battlefield to Maple Leaf Gardens: A Hockey Icons Story

COPYRIGHT 2011 BY KELLY McPARLAND

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency is an infringement of the copyright law.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

McParland, Kelly
The lives of Conn Smythe : from the battlefield to Maple Leaf Gardens : a hockey icons story / Kelly McParland.

eISBN: 978-0-7710-5686-4

1. Smythe, Conn, 1895-1980. 2. Toronto Maple Leafs (Hockey team) Biography. 3. Hockey team owners Canada Biography.
4. Soldiers Canada Biography. 5. Hockey Canada Biography.
I. Title.

GV848.5.S69M46 2011 796.962092 C2011-905555-4

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporations Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

Image on Hockey Hall of Fame

Published simultaneously in the United States of America by
McClelland & Stewart Ltd., P.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011935277

Cover design: Leah Springate
Cover photograph: Courtesy Conn Smythe family
Hockey Hall of Fame

FENN/McClelland & Stewart Ltd.
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Toronto, Ontario
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v3.1

For Coleen and Leigh

S portswriters loved Conn Smythe. Even the ones who didnt like him loved him. Reporters love anyone who gives them something interesting to write about, and Smythe always had something newsworthy going on. If you asked a serious question, hed answer it. Even if he knew his response would upset people, hed say it anyway. Sometimes hed say it because he knew it would upset people, because controversy put butts in the seats at Maple Leaf Gardens. Not that the Gardens seats lacked backsides: from the time Smythe finally gained full control in 1947 until he quit his last post with the team two decades later, there hadnt been a single unsold ticket to a Leafs game, and there wouldnt be for many more years to come.

They loved him because of his outsized character, fierce pride and uncompromising devotion to success, which was also useful newspaper fodder. They described him as fiery, stubborn, imperious, explosive, volcanic, a flinty mixture of heart and head, an eruption of Mt. Etna, a firebrand, the Toronto pepperpot, the Little Pistol, the Little Corporal, the little Major.

Trent Frayne wrote that Smythe was a bombastic, romantic, bigoted, inventive, intimidating, quixotic, terrible-tempered paradox of outlandish proportions.

Ralph Allen, who joined Smythes sportsmens battery in the Second World War, joked he was as diplomatic as a runaway Ted Reeve, who also signed on to the battery, claimed that when Smythe addressed the men, he sometimes grew so heated his helmet rattled like the lid on a tea kettle.

He was great for profiles. Any magazine with a cover to fill could send someone around to talk to Conn Smythe and come away with something worth reading. They wrote about him in his early days as Leaf boss roaring around the gangway that circled the Gardens, hurling hats and insults at wayward referees or skidding across the ice in his spats as he took his complaint directly to officials. Later, after war wounds reduced his mobility, they described him perched in his redoubt in the green seats, assessing the game from on high, just as fervent as ever as he dispatched runners with mid-game advice for the coach behind the bench.

They called him The Ice Man. They talked about his mix of harshness and sentimentality. They recounted the time Rocket Richard was thrown out of a game after a wild brawl and Smythe countered the resultant pooh-poohing with the remark: Weve got to stamp out this kind of thing or people are going to keep on buying tickets.

He was, more than anything, a contradiction. He valued loyalty above all else but left two of his most devoted allies, Frank Selke and Hap Day, feeling betrayed. He admired Ted Kennedy as one of the greatest Leafs ever, even while excoriating Selke for bringing him to the team. His anti-Catholic rhetoric flowed freely, yet several of the men he regarded most highly were ardent Catholics. He was a fierce proponent of free enterprise who willingly gave away money, just as long as it was requested, not demanded. He advocated a rough, tough, no-nonsense style of hockey, yet two of his favourite players Syl Apps and Joe Primeau rarely spent a minute in the penalty box. He blocked Harvey Jackson from the Hall of Fame for years because he drank too much and got into trouble, but happily supported Doug Harvey, who drank just as much.

He was more than simply a hockey manager. Twice he risked his life to go to war for his country and was injured both times, the second set of wounds causing permanent, painful damage. He joined up to fight Hitler when already in his mid-forties, with a wife and four children to care for, and refused numerous offers of safe, high-profile appointments, insisting on a battlefield position. On his return he launched a controversy that almost brought down the government of Mackenzie King, creating turmoil in Ottawa while he lay prone in a hospital bed.

One reason for writing this book is to remind people that Conn Smythe was not only the builder and owner of a hockey team but a fascinating Canadian who for forty years or more contributed enormously to the development of this countrys culture and character. He founded the hockey dynasty that, for much of his life, really was Canadas team (if you didnt happen to live in Quebec). He built the most famous arena in the country, a building that drew gawking, reverent tourists from across the country. When radio was still a novelty some said a gimmick he recognized its power and hired a young announcer named Foster Hewitt to turn his team into national heroes. He battled relentlessly for the ideas he believed in in sports, politics, and civic responsibility even after the country turned in a new direction and left him largely preaching to himself. He suffered the death of his oldest son amid a scandal played out on the front pages of the countrys newspapers. He lost a mother, son, and daughter to alcohol, which he rarely touched himself.

Another reason to write about Smythe is that many Canadians know little about him despite the important role he played over so many years. You have to be older than fifty to remember the last time the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup. You have to be close to sixty to remember when Conn Smythe ruled the team and to appreciate that no Leafs team has ever won a Stanley Cup when it wasnt run by a man named Smythe. He sold the team to his son, Stafford, in 1961, but the core of the club that hoisted the Cup in 1967 came up through the ranks of the talent machine developed by Conn Smythe.