The tiny headstones were decorated with white crosses. However, I did find a monument and an area reserved for members of the armed forces during World War Two. Unfortunately, the cemetery is very large, and I was unable to find his gravesite. He is buried in Mountview Cemetery in Cambridge, Ontario.Īuthor's note: I traveled to Cambridge's Mountview Cemetery to pay my respects to Syl Apps. On Christmas Eve, 1998, he passed away from a heart attack. Syl Apps won three Stanley Cup rings, all with the Maple Leafs.
He was the greatest player ever to wear the Leaf uniform." In "If You Can't Beat 'Em In The Alley," Smythe lamented the day when Apps hung up his skates for good: "the darkest moment of my career came when Syl Apps retired. He had developed an obvious pride and affection for Syl Apps. Syl Apps returned to Toronto and resumed his captaincy of the Leafs.Ĭonn Smythe, who had organized his own artillery battery and fought in the war, was severely injured in 1944 and returned to Canada. The call never came, as the war in the Pacific came to an end when atomic bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. He moved to Victoria, B.C., to await a call to action. He then volunteered for active duty with the 6th Canadian Division, a force of 24,000 men formed to invade Japan. On March 17, 1945, Apps graduated with the rank of second lieutenant. MLG file copy of a letter sent to Syl Apps during the war He joined the Officers Training Corps in Brockville, Ontario to "effect the transformation from warrior in spirit to warrior in fact that Smythe had desired of his Maple Leafs." Hunter believed that Apps, as team captain, would have "enlisted with a private sense of obligation- perhaps in some part to Smythe and the team, but in greater part to the defense of decency and goodness." In September, 1943, he left the Leafs and volunteered for active duty in the Canadian Army. During their training in Port Credit, west of Toronto, team members "hustled through trenches in their Maple Leaf jerseys." This was followed by an additional sixteen nights of training during the hockey season. By September, 1940, twenty five members of the team, including coach Hap Day and Foster Hewitt, had spent two weeks at military camp. In 1940, he wrote letters to all of the Leaf players, requesting that they receive military training.
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In the comprehensive book "War Games," author Douglas Hunter detailed Smythe's campaign to "make his Leafs a symbol of every able-bodied young man's patriotic duty to defend his country, the Empire, and the free world." Conn Smythe, a decorated veteran of WWI, wanted his hockey team involved in the war effort. The Second World War interrupted the careers of many Leafs, including Syl Apps. He followed this with five All-Star years. Apps became a star for the Maple Leafs, winning the Calder Trophy in 1937. Two years after adding him to his negotiating list, Smythe signed Syl to a hockey contract. "Hockey, even at a football game!" she groaned. "I'm going to put that young man on the Leafs' list." "Smythie," I said to myself, "you've made a lot of boners but this shouldn't be one of them." At half time I jumped to my feet and started to climb across (wife) Irene toward the aisle. Smythe recalled being awed by Apps in his autobiography, "If You Can't Beat 'Em In The Alley."
One of his team's games against the University of Toronto was scouted by Conn Smythe, the Maple Leafs' owner. After he won a gold medal for pole vaulting at the 1934 British Empire Games, and before he placed sixth at the 1936 Olympics, Apps played halfback for McMaster's football team. Years before he captained the Toronto Maple Leafs, Syl Apps was a young sports icon from Paris, Ontario. You can find more like this under the Maple Leafs History tab. This fanpost is being republished as part of our retro May festival.
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