Toronto Arenas

Toronto Arenas
List of Toronto Arenas seasons
Founded	1917
History	Toronto Hockey Club 1917–18 Toronto Arenas 1918–19 Toronto St. Patricks 1919–27 Toronto Maple Leafs 1927–present
Home arena	Arena Gardens
City	Toronto, Ontario
Colours	Navy
Owner(s)	Toronto Arena Company 1917–18 Hubert Vearncombe 1918–19

The Toronto Arenas or Torontos was a professional men's ice hockey team that played in the first two seasons of the National Hockey League (NHL). It was operated by the owner of the Arena Gardens, the Toronto Arena Company. As the ownership of the National Hockey Association (NHA) Toronto Blueshirts franchise was in dispute, the new NHL league was started, and a temporary Toronto franchise was operated. The NHL itself was intended to only be a one-year entity until the NHA could be reactivated, although it never was.

For the first season, 1917–18, the team operated without a formal organization separate from the Arena Company. and without an official club nickname. However, the press would dub the team the "Blue Shirts" or "Torontos" as they had done with the NHA franchise. After the 1918-1919 season, the Arena Company was granted a permanent franchise in the NHL, which evolved into today's Toronto Maple Leafs.

By the fall of 1917, a dispute between Eddie Livingstone, owner of the Blueshirts, and the owners of the NHA's other four clubs—the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators and Quebec Bulldogs had come to a boil. The other NHA owners were eager to disassociate themselves from Livingstone, but discovered that the NHA's constitution didn't allow them to simply vote Livingstone out. With this in mind, on November 22 the NHA board of directors voted to suspend operations. At the same time, the other four NHA clubs voted to create a new league—the National Hockey League. However, they didn't invite Livingstone to join them, effectively leaving him in a one-team league.

However, the other club owners felt it would be unthinkable not to have a team from Canada's second-largest city in the NHL. They also needed a fourth team to balance the schedule, since the Bulldogs were forced to suspend operations due to financial troubles (and, as it turned out, wouldn't return until 1920). To solve the problem, NHL president Frank Calder assigned the contracts of the Blueshirt players to a 'temporary' Toronto franchise to be operated by the Toronto Arena Company, who also owned the Montreal Arena. Calder had ordered Livingstone to sell the team, but Livingstone turned down several offers. The Arena Company was given a year to resolve the dispute or lose the franchise. The Arena Company did agree to compensate Livingstone for the use of the players for the season, although no suitable figure was ever reached, and the league itself disputed any claims that Livingstone had on the players.

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