Leafs president says new crest harks back to club's more successful times

TORONTO - A simple question from the team's president spurred the Toronto Maple Leafs to alter their crest for the first time since 1970.

"I always loved the look of the original Maple Leaf and I just wanted to know why it did change," Brendan Shanahan said a day after his club revealed a new look for the Leaf crest that harks back to the organization's richer times.

Shanahan didn't get a lot of good answers to his question, so the team started the process of changing their logo for the sixth time since the club became the Maple Leafs in 1927. The new crest looks more like a real leaf and less like the rigid design of the last 45 years.

The logo is designed to honour the franchise's glory years, notably its last dynasty. The Leafs won four Stanley Cups during the 1960s and it was that successful period, Shanahan said, that was the inspiration for the look the team wanted moving forward.

Save for some slight alterations, the new logo looks strikingly similar to the one the Leafs sported for much of their last dynasty.

"It seemed more and more like the people in Toronto and the people in within our organization wanted to go back to what Conn Smythe had in mind when he first said 'We're going to be the Maple Leafs'," Shanahan said of the logo, which includes 13 veins towards the top of the crest, a nod to the 13 Cups the team has won.

"And then what we're trying to build here and the history that we want to emulate is one that we identify more with that logo than the current one."

Shanahan gave his players an early look at the logo in the middle of January. The Leafs president said players enjoyed wearing throwback sweaters in the past and were happy with the change.

Reaction to the logo on Twitter and from friends, alumni and members of the organization has all been positive, Shanahan added.

Currently sitting near the bottom of the Eastern Conference and in the early days of a rebuild that began in earnest this season, Shanahan stressed that the logo change and upcoming revamp of the team's sweater were just small touches in a much larger scheme.

"Ultimately what's most important is what the players do while they're wearing the sweater," Shanahan said.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version misidentified the crest the Leafs wore when they won their last Stanley Cup.