Ravina Gardens was an ice hockey arena located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It supported amateur hockey from before World War I until 1961, and professional hockey briefly in the 1920s. The location of the demolished arena is parkland, and is known as Ravina Gardens. It was located at the foot of Rowland Street, southeast of Annette Street and Evelyn Avenue in West Toronto Junction.
Ravina Gardens started as the outdoor Ravina Rink prior to World War I. The area was originally the village of West Toronto Junction. It was remodelled to hold 4,500 seats in 1912. [1] The arena was the site of numerous ice hockey leagues and was the training facility of professional teams. In 1926, a new arena, named "Ravina Gardens" with an artificial ice surface was built on the site. [2]
In 1926, the first training camp of the New York Rangers was held there, supervised by Conn Smythe, who lived nearby. [3] In 1927, it hosted the games of the Toronto Ravinas minor professional hockey club. The arena was in use until the 1950s by the Humber Valley Hockey League's Hornets and Redmen. It was demolished in 1961, after groundwater in the ravine damaged the structure. [4]
The site is now parkland (two baseball diamonds). It is used as green space for three nearby schools: Annette Public, High Park Alternative School and St. Cecilia's Catholic. In 2016, Indigenous artists Chippewar, Aura, Chief Lady Bird, Mitch Hol and Evan Lovett created a 90-foot mural featuring an owl and a Thunderbird. [5]
The Toronto Maple Leafs are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. The club is owned by Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, a company that owns several professional sports teams in the city. The Maple Leafs' broadcasting rights are split between BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications. For their first 14 seasons, the club played their home games at the Mutual Street Arena, before moving to Maple Leaf Gardens in 1931. The Maple Leafs moved to their present home, Scotiabank Arena, in February 1999.
The Conn Smythe Trophy is awarded annually to the most valuable player (MVP) of his team during the National Hockey League's (NHL) Stanley Cup playoffs. It is named after Conn Smythe, the longtime owner, general manager, and head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Conn Smythe Trophy has been awarded 54 times to 47 players since the 1964–65 NHL season. Each year, at the conclusion of the final game of the Stanley Cup Finals, members of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association vote to elect the player deserving of the trophy. The trophy is handed out by the NHL Commissioner before the presentation of the Stanley Cup and only the winner is announced, in contrast to most of the other NHL awards which name three finalists and are presented at a ceremony. Vote tallies for the Conn Smythe Trophy were released starting in 2017.
The Toronto St. Patricks were a professional ice hockey team which began playing in the National Hockey League (NHL) in 1919. The Toronto NHL franchise had previously been held by the Arena Company, but despite winning the Stanley Cup the team was bankrupt and pulled out of the league after just two seasons. The rights to the Toronto franchise were purchased by a group of investors with links to an amateur club called the "St. Patricks". The new owners renamed the NHL franchise after the amateur club, and as the St. Patricks the team won the Stanley Cup in 1922. J.P. Bickell invested in the St. Patricks in 1924 as a favour to Charlie Querrie. In 1927, Charlie Querrie and other investors wanted out, J.P. Bickell made arrangements for other Toronto investors and initially hired Mike Rodden to run the hockey operations, which did not work out. He then hired Conn Smythe as the Managing Partner. The team was renamed to the Toronto Maple Leafs during the 1926–27 NHL season.
Harold Edwin Ballard was a Canadian businessman and sportsman. Ballard was an owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League (NHL) as well as their home arena, Maple Leaf Gardens. A member of the Leafs organization from 1940 and a senior executive from 1957, he became part-owner of the team in 1961 and was majority owner from February 1972 until his death. He won Stanley Cups in 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1967, all as part-owner. He was also the owner of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League (CFL) for 10 years from 1978 to 1988, winning a Grey Cup championship in 1986. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame (1977) and the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (1987). He is 1 of 7 names to be on both the Stanley Cup and Grey Cup.
Francis Joseph Aloysius Selke was a Canadian professional ice hockey executive in the National Hockey League. He was a nine-time Stanley Cup champion with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens and a Hockey Hall of Fame inductee.
Constantine Falkland Cary Smythe MC was a Canadian businessman, soldier and sportsman in ice hockey and horse racing. He is 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 Maple Leaf Gardens. As owner of the Leafs during numerous championship years, his name appears on the Stanley Cup eight times: 1932, 1942, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1951 and 1962.
Mutual Street Arena, initially called Arena Gardens or just the Arena, was an ice hockey arena and sports and entertainment venue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. From 1912 until 1931, with the opening of Maple Leaf Gardens, it was the premier site of ice hockey in Toronto, being home to teams from the National Hockey Association (NHA), the National Hockey League (NHL), the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA) and the International Hockey League (IHL). It was the first home of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who played at the arena under various names for their first 13½ seasons. The Arena Gardens was the third rink in Canada to feature a mechanically frozen or 'artificial' ice surface, and for eleven years was the only such facility in eastern Canada. In 1923, it was the site of the first radio broadcast of an ice hockey game, the first radio broadcast of an NHL game, and the first broadcast of an ice hockey game by long-time broadcaster Foster Hewitt.
Maple Leaf Gardens is a historic building located at the northwest corner of Carlton Street and Church Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The building was originally constructed in 1931 as an indoor arena to host ice hockey games.
The Toronto Marlborough Athletic Club, commonly known as the Toronto Marlboros, was an ice hockey franchise in Toronto, Canada. Founded in 1903, it operated junior ice hockey and senior ice hockey teams in the Ontario Hockey Association and later the Ontario Hockey League. The Marlboros were a farm team to the Toronto Maple Leafs and one of the dominant junior teams in history, winning seven Memorial Cup championships. The senior team competed for the Stanley Cup in 1904, and won the Allan Cup in 1950. After decline from the late 1970s, the sale of the franchise, and a move away from Toronto, it became the Guelph Storm in 1991.
The St. Michael's College School Arena is a 1,600-seat hockey arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was built in 1956 on the campus of St. Michael's College School in central Toronto, and originally was an outdoor rink. A half-cylinder shape wooden roof was finally built over the ice and completed in 1960.
The Garden City Arena Complex was a sports complex in St. Catharines, Ontario. It was the main arena facility in that city from its construction in 1938 until the opening of the Meridian Centre in 2014.
The Duquesne Gardens was the main sports arena located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during the first half of the 20th century. Built in 1890, the building originally served as a trolley barn, before becoming a multi-purpose arena. The Gardens opened three years after a fire destroyed the city's prior sports arena, the Schenley Park Casino, in 1896. Over the years, the Gardens was the home arena of several of Pittsburgh's historic sports teams, such as ice hockey's Pittsburgh Pirates and Pittsburgh Hornets. The Western Pennsylvania Hockey League, which was the first ice hockey league to openly hire and trade players, played all of its games at the Gardens. The arena was also the first hockey rink to ever use glass above the dasher boards. Developed locally by the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, Herculite glass was first tested in Pittsburgh. Most rinks were using wire mesh before the shatterproof glass was invented. Finally, the Pittsburgh Ironmen, a charter member of the Basketball Association of America, played at the Gardens from 1946 to 1947.
Conn Stafford Smythe was the son of Conn Smythe and president of Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd. and the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team from 1961–1969 and from 1970 until his death.
The Toronto Ravinas / Toronto Falcons were a minor league professional hockey team that competed in the Canadian Professional Hockey League in the 1927–28 season.
The history of the Toronto Maple Leafs, a professional ice hockey team in the National Hockey League (NHL), begins with the establishment of the NHL itself. Both the Toronto Maple Leafs and the NHL arose from disputes between Eddie Livingstone, owner of the National Hockey Association's Toronto Blueshirts, and the other team owners of the Association. In November 1917, these other team owners founded the NHL, and granted Toronto a temporary franchise in their new league. Playing at Arena Gardens, this temporary team, the Toronto Arenas, won the 1918 Stanley Cup Finals following the inaugural 1917–18 NHL season. The NHL made the franchise permanent in October 1918.
The Toronto Varsity Blues men's ice hockey team is an ice hockey team operated by the Varsity Blues athletics program of the University of Toronto. They are members of the Ontario University Athletics conference and compete in U Sports. The Varsity Blues senior team won the Allan Cup in 1921 and 1927, and won the gold medal for Canada at the 1928 Winter Olympics. The team is based at Varsity Arena on the University downtown campus in Toronto, Ontario.
The National Hockey League (NHL) was founded in 1917 following the demise of its predecessor league, the National Hockey Association (NHA). In an effort to remove Eddie Livingstone as owner of the Toronto Blueshirts, a majority of the NHA franchises suspended the NHA and formed the new NHL. The Quebec Bulldogs, while a member, did not operate in the NHL for the first two years. Instead the owners of the Toronto Arena Gardens operated a new Toronto franchise. While the NHL was intended as a temporary measure, the continuing dispute with Livingstone led to the four NHA owners meeting and making the suspension of the NHA permanent one year later.
Joseph Kelly Ironstone was a Canadian professional ice hockey player. Ironstone was a goaltender who played professionally from 1921 until 1936. He played two games in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the New York Americans and Toronto Maple Leafs, but played mostly in the minor professional leagues. Ironstone was the second Jew to play in the NHL.
Chief Lady Bird is a Chippewa and Potawatomi artist, illustrator, educator and community activist from Rama First Nation and Moosedeer Point First Nation, who currently resides in Toronto, Ontario. Chief Lady Bird (Ogimaakwebnes) is her spirit name, which she uses professionally as an artist. Her art is focused on foregrounding the experiences of Indigenous women.
43°39′34.83″N79°28′24.02″W / 43.6596750°N 79.4733389°W