Constantine Falkland Cary Smythe MC (; February 1, 1895 – November 18, 1980) was a Canadian businessman, soldier and executive in ice hockey and horse racing. He was best known as the principal owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1927 to 1961 and as the builder of their longtime home arena, Maple Leaf Gardens.
When the then-Toronto St. Patricks was facing financial trouble and under threat of being moved, Smythe organized a partnership to buy the team and keep it in Toronto. It was at his instigation that the team was renamed the Maple Leafs. He would remain involved with the franchise until the 1960s. The club was very successful during his ownership and his name appears on the Stanley Cup eight times. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder. In his honour, the Gardens gave the NHL the Conn Smythe Trophy, given to the most valuable player of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Outside of hockey, Smythe was also a decorated soldier in World War I. He returned to serve in World War II, organizing his own artillery battery. He was severely injured, injuries he never fully recovered from. While in hospital, he publicly criticized the Canadian war effort and the lack of trained recruits, embarrassing the Canadian prime minister. He continued to be outspoken during his lifetime. He publicly opposed Canada's new flag and resigned from the Maple Leafs Gardens board when the Gardens held a Muhammad Ali boxing match, over Ali's refusal to serve for the U. S. Army in the Vietnam War.
Smythe was a successful horse breeder and racing stable owner. His interest began as a youth, spending time at the track with his father. He bought his first horse in the 1920s and owned horses from then until he sold them to finance his regiment in World War II. He returned to breeding and racing horses in the 1950s and owned a stable and farm until his death. One of the horses he bred was Wonder Where which won Canadian Horse of the Year. In all, Smythe's horses won 145 stakes races.
With his wife Irene Sands, marrying her while still in university. Together, they ran the C. Smythe Ltd sand and gravel business until her death in 1965. They had four children, one of whom, Stafford, continued the Smythe ownership of the club; their other son Hugh was a director of the Gardens and a successful doctor, and, for a time, the Maple Leafs' doctor. Stafford's son Thomas also worked at the Gardens.Smythe was a philanthropist, contributing to several Canadian charities and also helping in fund-raising. His efforts helped build several permanent facilities for disabled children, deaf persons and the blind. He set up The Conn Smythe Foundation private charity, donating most of his estate to the Foundation, including his stable and farm. Hugh and Thomas would manage the Foundation after Conn's death in 1980.
Early years Smythe was born on February 1, 1895, in Toronto to Albert Smythe, an Irish Protestant from County Antrim who immigrated to Canada in 1889, and Mary Adelaide Constantine, an English woman. Mary and Albert were married in the 1880s while immigrating to Canada, but their marriage was rocky and they did not live together for more than a few months at a time. Conn was the second of the couple's two children; he had a sister, Mary, five years older, who died due to illness in 1903. Smythe remembered his mother Mary, who was known as Polly, as pretty, a drinker, and troublemaker, while Albert was quiet, a vegetarian, and a devoted member of Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical movement.
Smythe's first home was 51 McMillan Street, now known as Mutual Street, not far from the future site of Maple Leaf Gardens. The family was poor and moved several times during Smythe's youth, the size of lodgings depending on Albert Smythe's wages at the time. At one point, Albert and Conn moved to a house in Scarborough while Polly and Mary stayed on North Street (a section of today's Bay Street) downtown. Mary died in 1906, and Smythe attributed his lifelong teetotalism to his mother's drinking. At age eleven, Conn was christened, the occasion marking the first time that he insisted on the name "Conn" instead of his given name, Constantine. Albert and Conn became estranged after Albert began a new relationship with Jane Henderson. The two married in 1913 and had a daughter, Moira.
Smythe attended high school at Upper Canada College, but disliked it and transferred to Jarvis Collegiate Institute after a year and a half. He developed his athleticism there, playing on the hockey, rugby football, and basketball teams, and playing on city championship teams in basketball and hockey in 1912. At the age of 16, Smythe met Irene Sands, his future wife, after a football game against Parkdale Collegiate Institute, which she attended. Albert Smythe wanted his son to attend university, but Conn defied his father, bolting at age 17 to become a homesteader on in Clute Township, near Cochrane, Ontario. After one summer building a home on the property only to have it destroyed by a devastating fire, Smythe returned home and enrolled in engineering studies at the University of Toronto in the fall of 1912. There he played hockey as a centre, captaining the Varsity Blues men's ice hockey team to the finals of the 1914 Ontario Hockey Association (OHA) junior championships and to the OHA junior championship the following year. The coach of the losing team in 1915 was Frank J. Selke, who years later would work for Smythe at Maple Leaf Gardens. Smythe also played on the University of Toronto football team.
First World War
A week after winning the OHA championship in March 1915, Smythe and his eight teammates enlisted in the armed forces during World War I. He recalled in his memoirs that he and several classmates had 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 OHA's senior league; they were 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 did not complete the season, as the 40th Battery went overseas in February 1916.
The Battery was ordered into the Ypres salient. On October 12, shelling found their position, killing Major Southam and Sergeant-Major Norm Harvie, temporarily making Smythe commander of the Battery. The Battery fought for nearly two months in the trenches near the Somme before being relieved. In February 1917, Smythe earned a Military Cross, when during an attack the Germans counter-attacked with grenades. Smythe ran into the fight and killed three Germans and helped several wounded Canadian soldiers back to safety. 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 an attack where several Canadians were killed because of what Smythe thought was poor planning by the Battery's Major, Smythe wanted out. 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. Smythe 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. Smythe made two failed escape attempts and ended up in solitary confinement as a result. He was a POW until the end of the war. Smythe would later make light of his fourteen months in captivity "We played so damned much bridge that I never played the game again."
Return to Toronto Following the war, Smythe returned to Toronto. With his accrued Army salary and the proceeds from the sale of his homestead plot, he started a sand and gravel business in a partnership with Frank Angotti, who owned a paving business. To support the need for sand and gravel, Smythe bought land northwest of Toronto for a sand pit. He returned to the University of Toronto and finished his civil engineering degree in 1920, marrying Irene during the school year. Smythe and his paving business partner split, and Smythe retained the sand and gravel business. The company was renamed C. Smythe Limited and the company slogan was "C. Smythe for sand," which he had painted on his trucks, the lettering in white on the blue of the trucks. Frank Selke, who had moved to Toronto, was one of Smythe's first employees in the business. Irene took sand and gravel orders over the phone while also caring for the couple's newborn son, Stafford. Smythe owned the business until 1961.
In the evenings, Smythe coached the University of Toronto varsity team, a side job that led to his involvement in the NHL. The Varsity Blues traveled regularly to the Boston area for games against local colleges, with great success. In 1926, Boston Bruins owner Charles Adams recommended Smythe to Col. John S. Hammond, who oversaw the new New York Rangers franchise for its owners, Madison Square Garden. Hammond hired Smythe as general manager and coach, and tasked him with putting together a team. But on October 27, 1926, before the Rangers had played a regular-season game, Hammond fired Smythe in favour of Lester Patrick. Smythe believed Hammond fired him because of his refusal to sign two-time NHL scoring champion Babe Dye, against Hammond's wishes. Smythe thought Dye was not a team player.
Smythe applied to coach the Toronto St. Pats, but was rejected in favour of Mike Rodden. He continued coaching for the University of Toronto and took on a new senior team made up of University of Toronto players, called the Varsity Grads. The team won the Allan Cup and represented Canada at the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz the following year. Smythe refused to go when two Varsity Blues players he had promised could be part of the team were blocked by what he described as a "pressure play" from two Grads players to get relatives placed on the team instead. One of the players was Joe Sullivan, who years later became a Canadian Senator.
Although Smythe was no longer a Rangers employee, Madison Square Garden president Tex Rickard invited him to the team's opening game at the arena, an invitation Smythe nearly turned down because he felt the Rangers had short-changed him (Hammond paid Smythe $7,500 to settle his contract, but Smythe felt he was owed $10,000). At the insistence of his wife Irene, they traveled to New York and attended the opener in Rickard's private box. When the Rangers won the game, surprising the Montreal Maroons, Rickard offered Smythe a vice-presidency with the club. Smythe turned Rickard down partly because of the disputed $2,500, although Rickard ordered Hammond to pay off the rest. On their return trip to Toronto, the Smythes visited Montreal, where Conn bet the $2,500 on a university football game between Toronto and McGill. He then bet the $5,000 he won on the Rangers to defeat the St. Pats in Toronto, winning again, turning the $2,500 into $10,000 in three days.
Smythe forms the Maple Leafs