War Games: Conn Smythe and Hockey's Fighting Men

Raymond B. Blake is director of the Centre for Canadian Studies at Mount
Allison University, the author of Canadians at Last: Canada Integrates
Newfoundland as a Province, and co-editor of Social Welfare Policy in
Canada: Historical Readings.

This remarkable book looks at the activities of NHL players during World
War II.

Very few players volunteered in the early years of the conflict.
However, during the summer of 1942, concerns on the part of the team
owners that the government would shut down the League led to the
creation of powerful military hockey leagues run by such well-known
coaches as Red Hamill, Punch Imlach, and Tommy Ivan.

The author suggests that despite Conn Smythe’s constant hounding of
the Liberal government to introduce conscription, his own team, the
Toronto Maple Leafs, did practically nothing to help the war effort. In
fact, Maple Leaf Gardens profited greatly from the explosion of military
and quasi–professional services clubs that called the Gardens home
ice.

Hunter’s argument that it was Smythe who ultimately forced a
reluctant Mackenzie King to impose conscription is not convincing.
Further, his suggestion that Smythe and the Conservative Party colluded
to make political gain out of the conscription issue is undermined by
this book’s appendix, “Conn Smythe and the Printed Record.”

At the end of the book, Hunter attempts to draw parallels between the
1945 playoff series between Montreal and Toronto and the Allied advance
toward Germany. It’s a curious resolution. Is he trying to make the
point, as many did (Smythe included), that the Montreal Canadiens
deserved to be defeated in retaliation for Quebec’s resistance to
conscription?