Arena Gardens

History

Arena Gardens was initially home to two new teams in the National Hockey Association (NHA): the Toronto Hockey Club and the Tecumseh Hockey Club. Delays in construction meant that the teams could not play in the 1911–12 season, as was originally scheduled. The 12 miles (19 km) of piping for the artificial ice was installed improperly and had to be reinstalled in December 1912. The first professional ice hockey game in the building was on December 21, 1912, an exhibition between the Montreal Canadiens and Montreal Wanderers. Sprague Cleghorn was suspended for four weeks and fined $65 by the NHA for assaulting the Canadiens' Newsy Lalonde in the game. The first official game was on December 25, 1912, a game between the Canadiens and the Torontos. Upon the suspension of the NHA in 1917, the professional franchise of the new National Hockey League (NHL) for Toronto was operated by the Toronto Arena itself. The franchise was operated by the Arena for two years before being sold to become the Toronto St. Patricks. The St. Pats became the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1927 and played at Arena Gardens until the completion of Maple Leaf Gardens in 1931. Until 1923, the Arena was the only facility east of Manitoba with artificial ice-making capability. With this in mind, the St. Pats often let other teams use the Arena as a neutral site during the early and late months of the season when it was usually too warm for proper ice.