Relocated to Toronto in 2005, named for a team Conn Smythe once owned

The Toronto Marlies

The Maple Leafs' AHL development team spent decades in New Brunswick, St. Catharines and Newfoundland before landing in Toronto — and taking its name from the storied junior club Conn Smythe bought in 1927.

Toronto Marlies players at a faceoff — Toronto Marlies — Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons licensed

The Marlies' on-ice lineage stretches back to 1978, when the New Brunswick Hawks were founded as a farm club jointly operated by the Toronto Maple Leafs and Chicago Black Hawks. The franchise subsequently relocated several times: to St. Catharines, Ontario (1982–1986), Newmarket, Ontario (1986–1991), and St. John's, Newfoundland, where it played as the St. John's Maple Leafs from 1991 to 2005.

The move to Toronto

An opportunity opened when the Edmonton Oilers' AHL affiliate relocated from Toronto to Edmonton in 2004, leaving the city-owned Ricoh Coliseum without a primary tenant. On July 1, 2005, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment leased the Coliseum and relocated its AHL farm club there, renaming the team the Toronto Marlies. The name is a direct callback to the Toronto Marlboros, a storied junior hockey club that Conn Smythe purchased as a Leafs-affiliated development pipeline after buying the NHL team in 1927.

A development pipeline

As the primary development affiliate of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Marlies have served as the proving ground for many Leafs regulars over the past two decades, playing out of Coca-Cola Coliseum at Exhibition Place. The club has won a Calder Cup and has consistently ranked among the AHL's better-drawing franchises.

Sources

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