Conn Smythe Constantine Falkland Cary Smythe ( February 1 , 1895 – November 18 , 1980 ) was a Canadian builder in the National Hockey League . He is best known as the principal owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs from 1927 to 1961 and as the builder of Maple Leaf Gardens . As owner of the Leafs during numerous championship years , his name appears on the Stanley Cup eight times : 1932 , 1942 , 1945 , 1947 , 1948 , 1949 , 1951 , and 1962 . Biography . Early years . Born on February 1 , 1895 , in Toronto , Smythe went to high school at Upper Canada College ( until his father , a journalist , could no longer afford the tuition ) and Jarvis Collegiate . His parents were Albert Smythe , an Irish Protestant from County Antrim who emigrated to Canada in 1889 , and Amelia Constantine . He began engineering studies at the University of Toronto in the fall of 1912 . There he played hockey as a centre , leading the Toronto Varsity Blues to the finals of the 1914 Ontario Hockey Association junior championships and to the OHA junior championship the following year . The coach of the losing team in 1915 was Frank Selke , who years later would work for Smythe at Maple Leaf Gardens . Serves in the First World War . The First World War interrupted his studies . A week after winning the OHA championship in March 1915 , Smythe and his eight teammates enlisted . Smythe would recall that they tried to enlist at the beginning of the 1914 – 15 season , but were told to come back when they had beards . After securing a provisional rank of lieutenant with the 2nd ( Ottawa ) Battery , 8th Brigade , on July 17 , he headed to the Royal School of Artillery in Kingston , Ontario , in August for five weeks of training . He made full lieutenant on September 11 , and was able to get himself transferred to the 40th ( Sportsmen ' s ) Battery of Hamilton , organized by publishing figure Gordon Southam , son of William Southam . The unit , with Smythe as team manager , organized a team to compete in the Ontario Hockey Association ' s senior league — one of four Toronto - based teams in the league in 1916 . He played one game at centre , and then decided to replace himself with a better player . The team didn ' t complete the season , as the 40th Battery went overseas in February 1916 . On March 5 , 1917 , Smythe was awarded the Military Cross for " dispersing an enemy party at a critical time . Himself accounted for three of the enemy with his revolver . " After the death of his commanding officer , Major Gordon Hamilton Southam , Smythe transferred to the Royal Flying Corps in July 1917 . One of his instructors was Billy Barker , who would later become the first president of the Toronto Maple Leafs . He served as an airborne observer , directing artillery fire . Smythe was shot down by the Germans and captured on October 14 , 1917 . He was imprisoned by the Germans at Schweidnitz ( Swidnica ) in Upper Silesia . He made two failed escape attempts and ended up in solitary confinement as a result . He was a POW until the end of the war . Builds the New York Rangers . Following the war , Smythe returned to Toronto and became a partner in paving business which soon expanded into sand and gravel . He went back to U of T and graduated with a civil engineering degree in 1920 and was married during the school year . Smythe and his business partner split , with Smythe getting the sand and gravel business . In the evenings , he was a hockey coach , and occasionally took U of T teams to the Boston area for games against colleges from that area . In 1926 , Charles Adams , owner of the Boston Bruins , recommended him to Col . John S . Hammond , representing the owners of the new New York Rangers franchise , who was looking for someone to build his team . Smythe was hired as general manager and coach . But on 27 October 1926 — before the Rangers had played a single regular season game — Smythe was fired by Hammond in favour of Lester Patrick . Smythe believed that he lost his job by refusing to sign two - time NHL scoring champion Babe Dye , despite Hammond ' s wishes . Dye would go on to score just one more goal in his NHL career before retiring . Publicly , Hammond and Smythe said the parting was on good terms and was because Smythe could not be away from his sand and gravel business in the summers . The Rangers would win the Stanley Cup in 1928 – only their second year of existence – largely with the players Smythe had brought to the team . Smythe returned to Toronto and offered to coach the Toronto St . Pats , but was rejected in favour of Mike Rodden . Instead , he coached the Toronto Varsity Grads to the Allan Cup . The team went on to win the gold medal at the 1928 Olympics in St . Moritz the following year . Smythe refused to go because two Varsity Blues players he had promised could be part of the team were blocked by what Smythe described as a " pressure play " from two Grads players to get relatives placed on the team instead . Smythe and the Maple Leafs . Bitter over his dismissal by the Rangers , on February 14 , 1927 , Smythe took his severance pay — boosted by some gambling winnings — and with the help of some partners bought the Toronto St . Pats for $ 160 , 000 ( J . P . Bickell , whose shares were valued at $ 40 , 000 , kept his stake in the team , while Smythe and his partners bought out the other shareholders ) . The team was renamed the Toronto Maple Leafs and played the rest of the season under the new name . St . Pats owner Charlie Querrie had been mulling a larger bid from a Philadelphia group , but Smythe persuaded him that civic pride was more important than money . Although Smythe was the largest shareholder , his name was initially kept in the background . However , when the Leafs promoted a public share offering to raise capital , it announced that " one of the most prominent hockey coaches in Toronto " would be taking over management of the club . That prominent coach turned out to be Smythe . He succeeded Querrie as the team ' s governor , and installed himself as general manager . The next season , Smythe changed the team ' s colours from green and white to their present blue and white . While he claimed that the blue stood for the Canadian skies and the white for snow , it has been a long - standing tradition that top - level Toronto teams wear blue . At the start of the next season Smythe took over as coach as well . For the next three years , he was a one - man band as governor , general manager and coach . Before the 1931 – 32 NHL season , Smythe led the construction of Maple Leaf Gardens . In its first season in the new building , the franchise won its first Stanley Cup as the Maple Leafs . As part of a corporate reorganization , the Leafs became the leading subsidiary of the newly created Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd . ; Smythe remained the largest shareholder . Serves in the Second World War . In the Second World War , at age 45 , Smythe again served in the Canadian Army . Initially , he was a captain in charge of a troop within the Canadian Officers Training Corps , based at the University of Toronto . In 1941 , he formed the 30th Battery — a sportsmen ' s anti - aircraft battery that was part of the 6th Light Anti - Aircraft Regiment of the Royal Canadian Artillery . Smythe was made acting major and Officer Commanding . He was offered a higher rank to become the army ' s sports officer , but turned it down . After being stationed in England for nearly two years , Smythe and his unit were sent to France in July 1944 , where within three weeks he was badly wounded when the Germans bombed an ammunition depot . For the rest of his life he would walk with a limp and suffer bowel and urinary tract problems . He was sent back to Canada in September on a hospital ship . Smythe then became a vocal critic of government policy that made overseas service voluntary , and was threatened with a court martial . Becomes majority owner of the Leafs . In the fall of 1940 , Smythe had made former team captain Hap Day — who had also become partner in the sand and gravel business — the new coach of the Leafs , replacing the Leafs ' coach since 1931 , Dick Irvin . 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 longtime friends turned acrimonious , leading to Selke ' s resignation in May 1946 . Two months later , he became manager of the Montreal Forum and head of hockey operations for the Montreal Canadiens . 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 . . 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 . Smythe was named in a poll of Canadian sports editors the " most dominating personality in any capacity in sports " for 1949 . Notably , only two of these teams finished first overall , and one barely made the playoffs with a record three games under . 500 . However , Smythe was known for caring little about gaudy regular season records . From the 1940s onward , his two mantras to Leafs teams were to make the playoffs and keep the turnstiles clicking at Maple Leaf Gardens . In part because of this , the Leafs did not post a 100 - point season until 1999 – 2000 , 20 years after Smythe ' s death . 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 didn ' t know if the 55 - year - old Day would be available for the next season . It was a public rebuke that triggered the response Smythe wanted : Day resigned . In March 1957 , Smythe resigned as general manager and 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 , which became known as the Silver Seven , as was Percy Gardiner ' s son , George Gardiner . 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 . Sells to his son and partners . Though the committee made most decisions involving the Leafs , Smythe was not a hands - off owner and was constantly fighting with his son . After four years , he offered to sell his shares to Stafford and in November 1961 , Smythe sold 45 , 000 of his 50 , 000 shares in Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd . to a partnership of his son , Ballard , and Bassett for $ 2 . 3 million - - a handsome return on his investment of 34 years earlier . Smythe would later claim that he thought he was selling the company only to his son , but there is skepticism that he could have believed that Stafford could have come up with the millions of dollars needed to purchase the shares on his own . Smythe remained chairman of the board until 1964 , when Bassett succeeded him . In March 1966 , Smythe sold his remaining shares and resigned from the board of directors after a Muhammad Ali boxing match was scheduled for the Gardens . He found Ali ' s refusal to serve in the U . S . Army in the Vietnam War to be offensive and said that by accepting the fight , Gardens owners had " put cash ahead of class . Other accomplishments and honours . Smythe supervised the construction of the Hockey Hall of Fame building in Toronto in 1961 . He served as the Hall ' s chairman for several years , but resigned in June 1971 when Busher Jackson was posthumously elected into the Hall . In his letter of resignation , Smythe said that induction to the Hall was supposed to be reserved for people with " integrity and character " and that Jackson ' s admission showed those standards were being ignored . The National Hockey League honoured Smythe ' s contribution to the game by introducing the Conn Smythe Trophy in 1965 , to be presented to the Most Valuable Player in the Stanley Cup playoffs . After his death , the trophy was renamed the Conn Smythe Memorial Trophy . The league also named one of its four divisions , the Smythe Division , after him prior to the 1974 – 75 season . Smythe died on November 18 , 1980 in Caledon , Ontario at the age of 85 .