Conn Smythe - Majority Owner of The Maple Leafs

Majority Owner of The Maple Leafs

While Smythe was away, a committee, headed by Ed Bickle, Bill MacBrien, and Selke ran Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd. Upon his return from the military, Smythe found himself in the middle of a power struggle over the presidency of Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd. Smythe suspected that MacBrien, a member of the board of directors, wanted to succeed Bickle as president and give Smythe's job to Selke, who had been acting general manager in Smythe's absence. Smythe wanted to be president and asked Selke for his support. Selke equivocated, and relationship between the two long-time friends turned acrimonious, leading to Selke's resignation in May 1946. Two months later, Selke became head of hockey operations for the Montreal Canadiens and manager of the Montreal Forum, succeeding Tommy Gorman.

With the support of J. P. Bickell and with the help of a $300,000 loan from Toronto stockbroker and Gardens shareholder Percy Gardiner, Smythe was able to buy enough stock to become majority shareholder of Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd. He was thus able to install himself as president of the Gardens on November 19, 1947. Andy Lytle, sports editor of the Toronto Star, said the appointment "simply makes official what he has been for years in actuality ... Smythe and the Gardens are synonymous terms." MacBrien was made chairman. Smythe repaid his debt to Gardiner by 1960. He later succeeded MacBrien as chairman of the board.

Smythe oversaw one of hockey's greatest dynasties when Toronto won six Stanley Cups in 10 seasons between 1942 and 1951. Hap Day coached the team to five of those Cups and was assistant general manager for the sixth. He was named in a poll of Canadian sports editors the "most dominating personality in any capacity in sports" for 1949. The Maple Leafs were masters of playoff hockey; their regular-season performances were usually fair to good or just good enough to make the playoffs. Smythe was known for caring little about gaudy regular season records but he did care about winning the Cup, because "winning sells tickets."

However, the Leafs spent most of the 1950s as a mediocre team, struggling under three different coaches while Day remained assistant general manager under Smythe. Even so, in 1955, Smythe turned over most responsibility for hockey operations to Day, but nominally remained general manager. However, just after the Leafs were eliminated from the playoffs in 1957, Smythe told the media that it had been "a season of failure" and that he did not know if the 55-year-old Day would be available for the next season. Day felt that his legs had been cut out from under him and resigned.

By this time Smythe had turned the operation of the hockey team over to a seven-person committee, headed by his son, Stafford Smythe. Newspaper owner John Bassett was another member of the committee, as was Percy Gardiner's son, George Gardiner. The committee became known as the "Silver Seven" because the seven had been "born with a silver spoon in their mouths." Initially, all members were in their 30s or early 40s, but that changed before the end of the year when 54-year-old Harold Ballard, president of the Toronto Marlboros, was appointed to the committee to fill a vacancy. The committee hired Punch Imlach as general manager, who would later take over the coaching job.

Smythe was vehemently against a players' union. From 1957 onwards, Conn Smythe along with other NHL owners including James D. Norris of the Chicago Black Hawks and his half brother Bruce Norris of the Detroit Red Wings were accused of union busting activities related to the attempt by Ted Lindsay and a group of NHL players to form an NHL Players Association. Mr. Smythe's role in those affairs are dramatized in the movie, Net Worth.