The Toronto Maple Leafs have won the Stanley Cup 13 times.

Every Leaf fan knows that.

You can even say, the "Leafs" won 11, the St. Pats won one, the Arenas won one. And they are all the same team so it's all the same history.

But it's a day to commemorate and acknowledge history. So let's look at the Leafs lineage that goes back to a 14th Stanley Cup. The one won by the Blueshirts in 1914 as part of the National Hockey Association.

The NHL Guide and Record book used to acknowledge that 14th Cup, albeit with an asterisk, as recently as 2015-16, as belonging to the Maple Leafs. But the Leafs wanted no part of it. The Guide and Record book today acknowledges 13 Cups. No asterisk.

Funny.

The Montreal Canadiens have no problem claiming 24 Cup titles -- 23 in the NHL, and a 24th in the National Hockey Association.

But the Maple Leafs want nothing to do with the Blueshirts even though the Arenas and Blueshirts were basically the same "team," at least as far as the players on it go.

Different owners, though. Eddie Livingstone owned the Blueshirts. He was unpopular with the other owners of the NHA, who folded the league and started the NHL in part to get away from him. The Arena Company got the Arenas, and only when a team that was supposed to play in Quebec backed out. Livingstone sued the NHL.

That first year, they were simply "Toronto" or "the Torontos" although in winning the Cup that year, the engraving -- which came later -- showed them as the "Arenas."

In some instances, the Toronto Star referred to the new Toronto team as the "Blueshirts" which may have prompted the owner -- Toronto Arena Company -- to add the nickname "Arenas" given the bad blood between the Livingstone and the NHL owners.

As a result, there seems to be institutional hatred of the accomplishment of Livingstone's team passed down from owner to owner, from the Arena company through to Conn Smythe and Harold Ballard, to Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment.

When the Leafs redesigned their logo, they used 13 points on the stylized Leaf to represent their Cup wins. They told the league they wanted no part of the that 14th Stanley Cup.

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So now it is expunged from the record book.

GOT A QUESTION? Email me at askkevinmcgran@gmail.com and I'll answer it in Friday's mailbag.

