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The first Toronto Maple Leafs logo change in nearly 30 years has been unveiled.

The design, which becomes the official primary logo in time for the Leafs‘ centennial 2016-17 season, is a modern update on the 35-point Maple Leaf worn by the team between 1938-39 and 1962-63 — the winningest “jersey era” in Leafs history, featuring eight of the franchise’s 13 Stanley Cup championships (including the St. Pat’s).

The new logo contains 31 points, meant to represent the date (1931) Maple Leaf Gardens opened.

The era of the dark blue 11-point Maple Leaf — which was their primary logo between 1987-88 and 2015-16, seeing zero Stanley Cup Finals along with the lengthiest playoff drought in franchise history — is over. And hopefully the losing tradition of the past 28 years goes with it.

New management, new coaching staff, and now a new logo.


Shanny’s Letter


 

Updated Leafs Logo Timeline

leafstimelineupdated


Leafs logos by winning percentage

Here’s a great visual breakdown of the Leafs‘ results by jersey era courtesy of Sportsnet:

LEAFS-LOGO-HISTORY_WEB1


1938-1963 designs

6093_toronto_maple_leafs-jersey-1939
courtesy of sportslogos.net
7691_toronto_maple_leafs-jersey-1949
courtesy of sportslogos.net

The late Ted Kennedy — the last Maple Leaf to win the Hart Trophy as the league’s MVP — won five Stanley Cups in this era of the logo.

Ted Kennedy (Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS
Photo: The Canadian Press

The outline layer isn’t present in the new design, but the veins within the Leaf logo are back — 13 along the top, representing each Leafs Cup win, and 17 total as a nod to the franchise’s inaugural season — and so is a similar, but modernized, typeface.

turkbroda
The recently-honoured Turk Broda

Here’s to Mitch Marner, William Nylander, Morgan Rielly and company leading the team on deep playoff runs adorning this new logo on their chests.

An organization with the Leafs‘ storied history is always taking a leap making such a change, but consensus online seems to be that the organization hit the sweet spot between tradition and modernity with a sharp new twist on a classic logo. What say you?

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Alec Brownscombe is the founder and editor of MapleLeafsHotStove.com, where he has written daily about the Leafs since September of 2008. He's published five magazines on the team entitled "The Maple Leafs Annual" with distribution in Chapters and newsstands across the country. He also co-hosted "The Battle of the Atlantic," a weekly show on TSN1200 that covered the Leafs and the NHL in-depth. Alec is a graduate of Trent University and Algonquin College with his diploma in Journalism. In 2014, he was awarded Canada's Best Hockey Blogger honours by Molson Canadian. You can contact him at alec.brownscombe@mapleleafshotstove.com.