The story, and history of Maple Leaf Gardens is well documented.
It has been described as having religious significance, there is reverence and well earned-lore. A loathsome thread exists too.
Without question it is one of the most significant buildings ever constructed in Canada and a big part of its legend is that it was completed during the early years of the Great Depression.
But what was Toronto Maple Leafs’ owner Conn Smythe’s intent? Why did he build it where he did? What crowd did he want to attract and how do those spectators compare to what our notions of them would be? How did this venerated structure meet the times it evolved from?
These are questions that Russell Field (Associate Professor, Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management, the University of Manitoba) examines in A Night at the Gardens: Class, Gender, and Respectability in 1930s Toronto.
Explore the origin and early days of Maple Leaf Gardens through an academic lense.
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