The Leafs: An Anecdotal History of the Toronto Maple Leafs

Raymond B. Blake is an assistant professor of history at Mount Allison
University and the author of Canadians at Last: Canada Integrates
Newfoundland as a Province.

Fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey club have had little to cheer
about since 1967, when the team surprised the Montreal Canadiens and at
last won the coveted Stanley Cup. For most of the 1970s and 1980s, the
Leafs were a pathetic hockey team. Leafs fans, who have waited patiently
for the team to rebuild and rebound, saw hope when Cliff Fletcher became
general manager in 1991 and then lured Pat Burns from the Canadiens and
acquired Doug Gilmour in 1992. There was reason to hope for a brighter
future, but in each of the past two years the Leafs have been eliminated
in the Stanley Cup semi-finals.

There is very little new information in The Leafs. Jack Batten traces
the checkered history of the Toronto Maple Leafs, already the subject of
numerous books. He examines how Conn Smythe won control of the Leafs and
built the Gardens in the early years of the Great Depression; the Leaf
teams that won several championships in the 1940s, and how the team
sputtered throughout most of the 1950s; and the rebuilding process that
occurred in the early 1960s, with its emphasis on veterans. He devotes
much of the book to the Ballard era, and concludes with Steve Stavro’s
assuming control of the team.

Batten has chosen to tell the history of the Leafs through its owners,
general managers, coaches, and players. Herein lies the book’s
strength and appeal. Batten describes how Stafford Smythe and Harold
Ballard, both driven by their greed for money, won control of the team
and eventually destroyed it; and how incompetent managers traded away
the best players. He examines the careers of many Leaf players,
including Billy Harris, Lanny McDonald, and Max Bentley. Like a true
fan, Batten ends on a note of optimism, suggesting that the Leafs are
finally, being run as a business and might someday become Stanley Cup
champions.