The 1917–18 Toronto Hockey Club season was the first season of the new Toronto franchise in the newly organized National Hockey League (NHL). The team was intended as a 'temporary' franchise, operating without an official club nickname (the press would dub them the "Blue Shirts" or "Torontos", and in 1948 the NHL would engrave "Toronto Arenas" on the Stanley Cup as the 1917–18 winner) and without a formal organization separate from the Toronto Arena Company that managed the Arena Gardens. Despite this, the team came together to win the first NHL Championship, competing against existing teams that had transferred directly from the National Hockey Association (NHA). Toronto would go on to win the Stanley Cup by defeating the Pacific Coast Hockey Association champion Vancouver Millionaires – the first Stanley Cup for an NHL team and the second Cup for a Toronto team after the Toronto Blueshirts' victory in the 1913–14 season of the NHA. To this day, the Toronto Arenas are the only team in the four major North American sports to win the title in their first season as a franchise.
Team business
A series of disputes in the NHA with Toronto Blueshirts owner Eddie Livingstone led the owners of the other four NHA clubs to create the NHL for the 1917–18 season. They didn't invite Livingstone to join them, effectively leaving him in a one-team league.
The owners turned down a proposal from the management of the Toronto Arena Company to create a new Toronto-based franchise to join the other former NHA teams in a five team NHL. When the Quebec Bulldogs announced they didn't have enough financing to ice a team for the NHL's first season, the NHL granted a temporary franchise to the Toronto Arena Company, maintaining a balanced four-team league and providing representation to the second largest market in Canada. The Arena Company was required to return their temporary franchise to the league if they could not resolve the dispute by the end of the season.
The Toronto Arena Company reached an agreement to lease most of Livingstone's NHA players. The Toronto Arena Company paid players on a cash basis, and many players played without a contract. The players used the same uniform as the previous NHA season – blue with a white 'T'. As a result, while this team did not have an official name, fans and reporters called them "the Torontos" or even "the Blueshirts."
While agreement was reached on leasing the players, financial terms were not settled and this would lead to Livingstone filing a post-season lawsuit against the Toronto Arena Company. This dispute included a disagreement regarding the distribution of revenues from the Toronto Stanley Cup games in 1917, resulting in the Toronto club never engraving their name on the Cup to memorialize their series victory. In 1948, the NHL engraved "1918 Toronto Arenas" on the Cup, using the official nickname of the closely related 1918–19 Toronto franchise.
Following the season, the Arena Company returned its temporary franchise to the NHL. However, in response to the lawsuit, instead of returning the players to Livingstone, or even paying Livingstone, the Arena Company immediately formed a new club, the Toronto Arena Hockey Club, popularly known as the Toronto Arenas. The new club was a standalone corporation that could exist separate from any legal action. The NHL duly admitted the Arenas as a full member in good standing. After only one season, the Arenas filed for bankruptcy, and were sold to new owners who changed the team's name to the Toronto St. Patricks. Midway through the 1926-27 season, the St. Pats adopted their current name, the Toronto Maple Leafs.
While the Maple Leafs claim the 1917-18 Torontos season as the first season in their history, they do not claim the history of the NHA Blueshirts as their own even though the 1917-18 Torontos were a nearly complete (though unpaid) leasing of the 1916–17 Blueshirts. The NHL was formed to eject Livingstone from the NHA, and the Blueshirts franchise formally ceased to exist. For that reason, the Maple Leafs could not claim the NHA Blueshirts' legacy.
Regular season
The Toronto team (the 'Torontos' for the remainder of this article), Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, and Ottawa Senators were the original four teams of the league. The Wanderers would not finish the season, as the Montreal Arena burned down on January 2, 1918, and the club would fold after just six games.