Maple Leafs Centre Ice Logo Brings Back the 1927 Crest for the 100th Year

The new Maple Leafs centre ice logo is the original one

The Maple Leafs centre ice logo at Scotiabank Arena for the 2026-27 season is the crest the franchise wore when it became the Maple Leafs. The club revealed it during a social media live stream of the ice installation, giving fans a behind-the-scenes look at the surface going in ahead of camp.

The mark is a dark leaf with ragged edges and white block letters reading TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS stacked across the middle. It is the logo the team adopted when Conn Smythe renamed the St. Patricks and switched the colours to blue and white ahead of the 1926-27 season — the first maple leaf the Maple Leafs ever wore.

This is not a rebrand. The jerseys have not changed. What has changed is the most-photographed 30 feet of ice in Canadian hockey, and it has changed in the direction of the club's own history rather than toward anything modern.

Why 2026-27 is the anniversary that matters

There is an obvious point of confusion here, and it is worth clearing up because it comes up every time. Toronto already had a centennial season. That was 2016-17, marking 100 years since the franchise entered the NHL in 1917 as the Toronto Arenas.

This is a different anniversary. The 2026-27 season marks 100 years since the team became the Maple Leafs — 100 years of the name, the blue and white, and the leaf on the chest. The franchise spent its first decade as the Arenas and then the St. Patricks, in green and white. Everything a modern fan recognizes as Toronto Maple Leafs identity starts in 1927, not 1917.

That distinction is why the club went back to the specific 1927 crest rather than pulling any of the dozen other leaf variations the team has worn since. The design being honoured is the one that begins the thing being celebrated.

The design itself, and why it reads well on ice

The 1927 leaf is a different object from the current crest. It has more points, more irregularity in the outline, and a heavier presence. The modern 31-point leaf the team has worn since 2016 is cleaner and more symmetrical — a better logo for a jersey chest and a merchandise line.

The older mark is the better one for centre ice, for reasons that have nothing to do with nostalgia. Centre ice logos are viewed from steep overhead camera angles and from seats 200 feet away. Irregular outlines and heavy weight hold up at that distance in ways that fine, symmetrical detail does not. The stacked white block lettering across the middle of the leaf gives the whole thing a horizontal anchor that reads clearly on television.

It is also, and this is not a small thing, distinctive. A significant number of NHL centre ice logos have converged on the same visual language over the past decade. This one does not look like anything else in the league.

A short history of the leaf Toronto is putting back down

Conn Smythe bought the St. Patricks in February 1927, kept them in Toronto rather than letting them move to Philadelphia, and renamed them almost immediately. The story most often attached to the choice is the maple leaf's association with Canadian military service, which Smythe — a veteran of the First World War — carried with him for the rest of his life.

The crest that resulted was blunt and functional in the way logos of that era were. No gradient, no shading, no carefully balanced point count. A leaf shape with the city and team name across it, rendered in a single colour on white. Ninety-nine years later, that bluntness is exactly what makes it work as a design object.

The leaf itself has been redrawn many times since. The 11-point version of the 1960s and 70s. The rounded 1980s and 90s mark. The current 31-point crest introduced for 2016-17, which references the 1931 opening of Maple Leaf Gardens and carries 17 veins in its top portion for 1917. Toronto's branding has always been a conversation with its own past. This is simply the most literal version of that conversation the club has run in years.

What a centre ice change actually involves

It is more work than most people assume. The logo is painted directly onto a sealed base layer of ice, then sealed again and built over with the playing surface — a process that happens once, before the season, and cannot be reversed mid-year without taking the ice out. A team that commits to a centre ice mark in September is living with it through the following spring.

That is part of why the reveal came as a live stream of the ice going in rather than as a rendered graphic. There was nothing to mock up. The ice crew was doing the installation on the schedule it does every September, and the club pointed a camera at it.

It is also a reminder of how far ahead these decisions are made. The 1927 crest going down at Scotiabank Arena this week was approved months ago, likely well before John Chayka was hired in May and certainly before Jim Hiller took the bench. The hockey operations overhaul and the anniversary planning ran on entirely separate tracks, and they happened to arrive in the same building at the same time.

What else the anniversary season might bring

A centre ice change is usually not the whole of a commemorative plan. Teams that go to the trouble of installing a heritage mark on the ice generally have jersey and in-arena elements to follow, and the speculation has already started about what Toronto has lined up for the season.

We have covered the Remix Nights schedule and the persistent jersey rumours attached to it. Nothing about the centre ice reveal confirms or denies any of it. What it does establish is that the club is treating the 100th year of the Maple Leafs name as a marketable occasion rather than letting it pass quietly, which makes additional heritage elements considerably more likely than not.

Fans get their first live look at the new ice on September 29, when Toronto hosts Montreal to open the season.

The timing is either very good or very awkward

Here is the uncomfortable part. A franchise leaning into a century of history is making a bet on the mood of the season. Toronto missed the playoffs last season, fired its coach and general manager, and enters this year with a new GM in John Chayka, a new head coach in Jim Hiller, an 18-year-old first overall pick, and outside projections that are not generous.

Celebrating heritage during a rebuild-adjacent season can read as deflection. It can also read as exactly the right move — a reminder of what the organization is supposed to be while a new management group does the unglamorous work of fixing it. Which of those it becomes depends entirely on the standings, and nothing about a logo changes that.

For what it is worth, the club did this quietly. A live stream of ice installation is not a marketing blitz. There was no campaign attached, no video package, no player narration. They put the old leaf down and let people notice.

What's next

The Maple Leafs centre ice logo debuts for real on September 29 against Montreal at Scotiabank Arena, the opening night of an 84-game season. Between now and then, Toronto plays four preseason games starting with Saturday's split-squad doubleheader against the Canadiens, and Hiller has a lineup to sort from a roster that looks very different than it did in April. Watch for further anniversary elements to be announced as the season approaches — a team that installs a 1927 crest at centre ice is rarely finished after one reveal.