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| March 22, 1967 Eddie Shack on the cover. |
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| Leafs vs. Habs. Six weeks away from a Toronto Cup win. |
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| Cool ad for Eaton's featuring Gordie Howe. |
1966/67
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1971/72
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| Dec. 1, 1971 vs. St.Louis. |
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| Article on the Marlies and their coach Gus Bodnar. |
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| Ad for the short-lived Bobby Orr's Pizza Parlor. |
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1981/82
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| Opening night Oct. 10, 1981. I was there. |
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| Conn Smythe with one of his jockeys. |
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1984/85
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| Dec. 22, 1984 vs. Boston. |
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| Japan Camera failed to pay for NHL logo rights in this Mike Palmateer ad. |
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1970/71
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| Dated November 7, 1970 picturing Gilbert Perreault. Around this era, Toronto issued game programs that were more like team guides of whomever was the oppositin that evening. There was really nothing inside the program in the way of articles or current statistics, only a player-by-player guide of the opposition that evening. |
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| The back cover of the program picturing ex-Leaf coach Punch Imlach and his newly created Buffalo Sabres. |
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1978/79
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| October 28, 1978 with Trevor Johansen on the cover. |
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| Bruins in town for this Saturday night tilt. |
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| Advert for Daoust Skates featuring an akwardly airbrushed logo on Borje Salming's jersey. |
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1972/73
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| February 17, 1973 with a great cover shot of Paul Henderson and Jacques Plante. |
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| Expansion Islanders visiting the Gardens. |
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| Great action shot of Plante reaching for a save. |
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1946/47
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| August 21, 1947 program for a wrestling event at The Gardens picturing Whipper Billy Watson. It's obviously alot tougher to find Leaf programs from the '30s and '40s but this will do for now as a great example of a program from the 1946/47 season. |
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| Neat ad for Sammy Taft Hat Shop, supplier to all six NHL teams. |
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1971/72
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| Dated October 16, 1971 Another program from the era when the program was less a game program and more a guide on the opposing team. |
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| Cool photo of Montreal Canadien goalie Ken Dryden wearing a mask I have seen on him. I figure this was his third ever NHL game from the end of the 70/71 season. |
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1975/76
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| February 23, 1976 game versus Atlanta Flames. Wayne Thomas pictured. |
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| A look at the season's Molson Cup Award finalists in typical 1970's style. |
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| An advert for Seagram's Whisky. It appears the folks at Seagrams were too cheap to secure licensing from the NHL and opted to use WHA action shots in their ad. |
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1981/82
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| April 3, 1982 picturing Rick Vaive who was just completing Toronto's first ever 50 goal campaign. |
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| Very cool full page artwork of the previous year's Molson Cup winners. |
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1976/77
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| December 22, 1976. Wayne Thomas pictured. |
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| More great '70s style Molson Cup finalists |
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| Great ad featuring Bobby Hull and his new hair. |
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1935/36
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| November 4, 1935 |
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| Game was an exhibition match between Leaf coach Dick Irvin's Blue team and Eddie Powers coach of IHL's Syracuse Stars and his White squad. |
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| Neat ad featuring cartoons of King Clancy and Charlie Conacher among others. |
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| Harvey "Busher" Jackson for Beehive Corn Syrup |
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1956/57
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| Rudy Migay on the March 9, 1957 cover |
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1953/54
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| Fern Flaman on the cover from Feb. 27, 1954 |
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| Back then it was perfectly fine to have an ad showing a goalie enjoying his stogie during the game |
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| The amazing Mono Cup! |
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| Tim Horton is "pleased as punch"" with his player of the month award |
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December 1930 Toronto Maple Leafs Full Program
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1958/59
Latest addition is from the 1958/59 season, a game that took place February 25 against the Montreal Canadiens. Going into this game Toronto sat in last place of the six team NHL with 48 points in 57 games and yet on this night they beat the first place (by 15 points over second spot) Montreal Caandiens 3-2.
Montreal held a 2-0 lead after one period on goals from Phil Goyette and Jean Beliveau but Toronto scored three in an eight minute span of the second and gel;d on for the win. Goals from Frank Mahovlich, Bert Olmstead (pictured on this game's program cover) and Gerry Ehman. Leaf goalie Ed Chadwick turned aside 26 of 28 shots for the win while Jacques Plante allowed three goals on 31 shots.
Including this game, Toronto would finish the season on a 8-4-1 run to grab the fourth and final playoff spot by one point over the New York Rangers. Toronto took the first round over Boston in seven games before losing the Cup finbal in five to the same Canadiens.
Here's a neat story inside the program about how the Leafs pioneered the advanced statistic craze of today. I wrote about it further here:
Great ad for Beehive Corn Syrup featuring Leaf Ron Stewart.
Another nice article, this one about the newly installed Wurlitzer organ at Maple Leaf Gardens. Note the large portrait of the queen which would be replace by seating in later years.
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1965/66
Here's the latest Maple Leaf Gardens program added to the collection. It fills the gap I had between 1959/60 and 1976/77. Now I need only three seasons between 1946/47 and 76/77, getting there.
This one's from opening night, October 23, 1965 with Chicago as the visitor. Lineup page is below.
Leaf captain George Armstrong traveled the world the previous summer as a goodwill ambassador. It appears he was often pictured in his native head-dress, being "The Chief" and all.
Armstrong got as far as the middle-east, touring on a camel trek as well as visiting over-seas troops.
Here's a couple cool advertisements, one featuring Johnny Bower's "sticky" glove hand.
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1942/43
Here's the latest addition to my Hockey Den and to my quest to collect a program for every year of Maple Leaf Garden's existence. This one is from opening night of the 1942/43 season between the New York Rangers and the defending Stanley Cup champs Maple Leafs. The cover features a great photo of Pete Langelle scoring the winning goal in Game 7 of the 1942 Cup Finals.
The Maple Leafs would win this home-opener by a score of 7-2. I found a Canadian Press write up on the game;
"In surprisingly simple fashion, Toronto Maple Leafs conquered New York Rangers, 7-2, Saturday in their opening National Hockey League game before 11,777 fans to pick up the thread where they left off in the Stanley Cup finals last season.
President Frank Calder of the National Hockey League presented Leafs the Stanley Cup pennat they won last season in a brief pre-game ceremony. The first puck was faced by Pte. Alex Chisholm of the Toronto Scottish Regiment, who won the Military Medal at Dieppe."
Gaye Stewart potted two goals and an assist and Hank Goldup recorded a goal and two helpers. Lorne Carr, Bucko McDonald, Shep Mayer, Bud Poile and Billy Taylor all chipped in two points.
Being at the height of World War II, the program is filled with wartime ads and articles, one is below. The game was also the debut of Rangers goaltender Steve "The-puck-goes-inski" Buzinski who would play only eight more games with the Rangers posting a career goals against average of 5.92.
Toronto would finish 3rd in the NHL in 42/43 and lost in the semi-finals to Detroit in six games. New York stumble to a mere 11 wins and 30 points in the fifty game season.
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1948/49
Finally, a new addition to the Programme Project. I picked up this beauty from my regular source at the Vancouver Flea Market for a nice price. It's probably in the best condition of any of my older programs, real clean. "The Dipsy Doodle Dandy from Delisle", Max Bentley is pictured on the cover. The program itself was issued for the Mann Cup Finals, the Senior lacrosse championships of Canada. The series took place at Maple Leaf Gardens in mid-October of 1948, just prior to the NHL campaign.
The lineups of the Hamilton Tigers and New Westminster Adanacs, Hamilton would go on to win the Mann Cup three games to two. The interior of the program is full of Leaf photos and stories, as the same issue would have been used for the start of the NHL season with only the lineup pages in middle changed.
Where are they now, Leafs of the past.![]()
Great photo of Leaf Captain Syl Apps who competed in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Pole Vault. He finished sixth place in the event.
Below is a shot of some of the Leafs decked out in their best tops and tails.
Leaf higher-ups enjoying a Vancouver golf outing on their 1934 tour of Western Canada.
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1945/46
Check out this beauty. One of my annual "self-purchased" Christmas presents from this year. Fantastic artwork of Ted "Teeder" Kennedy for a game against the Black Hawks on December 1, 1945. Lineup page below shows Maple Leaf Gaye Stewart with 13 goals already in the campaign, Toronto had played 13 games to that point in the season. Stewart would finish the 50 game schedule with 37 goals to lead the league, the last Maple Leaf to do so.
There is a great spread in the program of some of the various events that Maple Leaf Gardens had hosted in 1945, including a show featuring Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger.
A few pages are devoted to the Leafs "Victory Dinner" celebrating the Cup win of 1944/45. A golf tournament was held on the day, showcasing various current and old-time Maple Leafs.
This page shows players receiving various gifts for winning the Championship as well as the Cup itself in it's old "stovepipe" variation. At centre-right below is a rare shot of Captain Syl Apps sporting a moustache.
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1945/46
Here's the newest addition to the Maple Leaf Programme Project, my second one from the 1945/46 campaign. This one is from January 1946 and was sold during the Ice Follies shows that took over the Gardens for a stint. On the cover is a fantastic image (as they all were back then) of Leaf Gordie Drillon.
Inside the old programs, there's usually lots of nice old advertisements like the one above. Inside the front cover is a great full-colour ad for British American Motor Oil and inside is a full-page ad for a necessity of the day, Brylcreem.
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1962/63
I recently realized I had not yet posted my 1962/63 program which was hiding in plain sight on my Leafs goalies shelf in the Den. Issued for the game on February 16, 1963 against the Rangers, a game won 4-2 by the Leafs as Don Simmons out-dueled Gump Worsley in the nets.
I would kill for one of the T-shirts from York peanut butter.
Here's a photo of a horse kissing Eddie Shack.
Another riveting pic of The Big M, Frank Mahovlich enjoying a cup of coffee.
A new innovation at this time was the broadcasting of live road games in a local movie theatre. $2.50 for the best seat seems a tad steep to watch on a screen (the internet tells me that is equal to roughly $20 today), I suppose there were zero other options though.
Leafs trainer Bob Haggert also sold Volkswagens on the side, because he had to.
The Leafs goaltending tandem of Bower and Simmons just missed out on the Vezina Trophy by a mere two goals to Glenn Hall and the Black Hawks.
These Leafs made a tidy $20 each for appearing in this add for Hearn Pontiac. The graphic artist made at least that much for the fine cut and paste pre-photoshop job.
If you grew up in Toronto, you are familiar with Shopsy's hot dogs. They really were good.
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1941/42
I recently got a great deal on this wartime era Maple Leaf Gardens program. It was issued for a wrestling event on June 4, 1942 and pictures two gorgeous lady wrestlers on the cover. The lineup page in the middle of the program is below.
The neat thing about this program is that it's chock-full of war related advertisements. The folks at Bee Hive Corn Syrup offered map-away photos of the Royal Air Force planes in addition to hockey players of the day.
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1938/39
Here is the latest addition to my Maple Leaf Programme Project, the quest to collect a game program from every season in the history of Maple Leaf Gardens. I believe this is the 42nd of 50 seasons between 1930/31 and 1979/80 that I have a program from Maple Leaf Gardens. A few of them are from wrestling or ice-capades events at the Gardens and one is a Junior game. These all count for my purposes.
This latest acquisition is from April 1939, an Allan Cup Finals game between the Montreal Royals and the Toronto Goodyears. The Royals would eventually win the Allan Cup by three games to two.
The Goodyears were led by future NHLers Don Metz, Peanuts O'Flaherty, Hank Goldup and 22 year-old future Leafs Coach/GM, George "Punch" Imlach. The Royals boasted two future big-leaguers in Buddy O'Connor and Gerry Heffernan.
The cover of the program has a wonderful painting of a Leaf skater, not identified inside the program. Looking through the photo database of the Leafs of that era, I believe the player pictured is Bob Davidson (photograph below).
Davidson would play twelve NHL seasons, all for Toronto. He posted his best numbers in 1943/44 when he tallied 47 points in 47 games. Davidson retired after the 1945/46 season.
The ad for the Globe and Mail newspaper shows a terrific action shot of the Maple Leafs baseball club of the Triple A, International League. You could have got yourself a brand new Pontiac Arrow Coupe for a mere $880. That equals approximately $15,000 today, which is still a steal.
Above, Maple Leafs players enjoy their pre-game cereal with Bee Hive Corn Syrup. Apparently it aids digestion AND builds strength! Below, an ad for Dunne Skate Company of Toronto. I would love to strap on a pair of these bad boys and go for a whirl.
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More Pages to Explore .....
