The Toronto Maple Leafs this week announced that the old Toronto St. Pats will return once again in 2020 for two games next month.
In what’s quickly becoming an annual St. Patrick’s Week tradition in Toronto, the Leafs will don throwback uniforms based on those worn by the club in the 1920s when they were known as the Toronto St. Patricks.
The team took on the St. Pats name in 1919, won a Stanley Cup in 1922 before they were purchased by a group headed by Conn Smyth who renamed the team the Maple Leafs in 1927.
Toronto will wear the uniforms first on the road, a game in Boston against the Bruins (who actually faced the St. Pats for a few years about 85 years ago) on March 14th. They’ll then bring ’em home to Toronto for one against the New Jersey Devils on the 17th.
Amazingly, the Devils are the only other team in the league that wears a St Patrick’s Day throwback. Cruelly, they won’t be able to wear them as both these St Pats and Devils uniforms are white.
Leafs players took to practice yesterday wearing the new gear, including custom practice jerseys:
The Leafs previously wore St. Pats throwback uniforms in 2002, 2017, and 2019. Last year was the first time they’d worn it for multiple games and on the road.
New for this year is a new line of St Pats/Maple Leafs co-branded merchandise put out by Roots featuring a logo that I’m irrationally excited about:
This line was officially released and made available for sale this morning at the official team shop of the Leafs down at Scotiabank Arena. Not gonna lie, I’m considering a purchase.
Yeah, I know the headline should include the accent on the ‘a’ in “Brách” but the font we use for headlines on this site has a problem when you try to include an accent. It’s also why our headlines never have apostrophes, which certainly is a more frequent problem than the use of “Brách”. Anyways. What I’m trying to say here is, “yes, I’m aware”.