Toronto Arenas

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The Toronto Arenas were Toronto’s first team in the National Hockey League (NHL). Created in 1917, they were a temporary Toronto franchise run by the Toronto Arena Company, which owned the Arena Gardens. The team had no official nickname at first; reporters called them the Torontos or the Blue Shirts because many players came from Eddie Livingstone’s former Blueshirts.

In the 1917–18 season, led by coach Dick Carroll and manager Charlie Querrie, the Torontos won the second half of the season, beat the Montreal Canadiens in the playoffs, and then defeated the Vancouver Millionaires to win the Stanley Cup. They did not engrave the team name on the Cup, a later custom that would become common. The Maple Leafs later said they do not claim the Blue Shirts’ NHA history as their own, but they do recognize the history of the temporary 1917–18 Toronto franchise.

The 1918–19 season brought financial and legal troubles. Attendance was low, and after 18 games the Arenas withdrew from the league on February 20, 1919. In December 1919, the NHL approved the sale of the Arenas to a group led by Charlie Querrie, and the team was renamed the Toronto St. Patricks, beginning a new chapter that would eventually become the Maple Leafs in 1927.

Today, the NHL records separate these early Toronto teams as TAN (Arenas), TSP (St. Patricks), and TOR (Maple Leafs). The Arenas marked Toronto’s first entry into the NHL and helped shape the city’s enduring hockey legacy.