Constantine Falkland Cary Smythe, MC (/ˈsmaɪθ/; February 1, 1895 – November 18, 1980) was a Canadian businessman, soldier and sportsman in ice hockey and horse racing. He is best known as the principal owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1927 to 1961 and as the builder of Maple Leaf Gardens. As owner of the Leafs during numerous championship years, his name appears on the Stanley Cup eight times: 1932, 1942, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1951 and 1962.\n', '

Smythe is also known for having served in both World Wars, organizing his own artillery battery in the Second World War. The horses of Smythe\'s racing stable won the Queen\'s Plate twice among 145 stakes race wins during his lifetime. Smythe started and ran a successful sand and gravel business. He was a big supporter of the Ontario Society for Crippled Children and the Variety Club and founded the Conn Smythe Foundation philanthropic organization.\n', '

Smythe was born on February 1, 1895, in Toronto to Albert Smythe, an Irish Protestant from County Antrim who immigrated to Canada in 1889, and Mary Adelaide Constantine, an English woman. Mary and Albert were married in the 1880s while immigrating to Canada, but their marriage was rocky and they did not live together for more than a few months at a time. Conn was the second of the couple\'s two children; he had a sister, Mary, five years older, who died due to illness in 1903. Smythe remembered his mother Mary, who was known as Polly, as pretty, a drinker, and troublemaker, while Albert was quiet, a vegetarian, and a devoted member of Madame Blavatsky\'s Theosophical movement. Albert Smythe was a charter member of the Theosophical Society of Canada in 1891, and edited its newsletter until the final years of his life.\n', '

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