August 2025.
Toronto’s Hockey Hall of Fame is about as Canadian a museum as you can get. Aside from its focus on the most stereotypically Canadian sport, it houses the Stanley Cup, the trophy awarded to the winner of the NHL championship every year, and it is located inside a historic BMO branch.
The Hockey Hall of Fame is located at 30 Yonge Street in downtown Toronto, Ontario. It is part of the larger Brookfield Place office and retail complex (also featuring the Allen Lambert Galleria), which is bordered by Wellington Street West to the north, Front Street West and the Dominion Public Building to the south, Yonge Street to the east, and Bay Street and Royal Bank Plaza to the west.
History
c. 1890 image of the completed BMO headquarters. (The Bridge)
The building that houses the Esso Great Hall in the Hockey Hall of Fame (which this post focuses on) was built as the Toronto head office of the Bank of Montreal (BMO). BMO was not allowed to expand into Toronto until 1841, and its first purpose-built branch was an 1845 Neoclassical design based on English gentlemen’s clubs. The existing building replaced the 1845 building and was designed by local firm Darling and Curry in the Baroque Revival style. Its construction began in 1885 or 1886, and the building was completed in 1888.
This building’s story is one of survival. Early on in its history, it escaped the Great Fire of 1904, which destroyed several buildings on Bay Street, Wellington Street, and Front Street. It also somehow avoided the scourge of urban renewal during the 1950s and 1960s, which was especially bad in Toronto. Nonetheless, by the 1970s, the interior woodwork was painted white.
Let’s backtrack a bit to the Hockey Hall of Fame itself. After the establishment of similar Halls of Fame for baseball and golf in the 1930s, Captain James Sutherland petitioned the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association to establish a committee to study the origins of hockey in 1941. Sutherland played for the Athletic Club of Kingston, which was part of the first official hockey league in Canada, and he considered Kingston to be the city where hockey was created. CAHA and the NHL agreed to establish what is now known as the Hockey Hall of Fame in Kingston in 1943. The newly formed Hall of Fame inducted members beginning in 1945, but it struggled to build a headquarters due to high costs. Sutherland died in 1955 without seeing the construction of the Hall of Fame he established begin.
Original Hockey Hall of Fame building’s grand opening. (Hockey Hall of Fame)
In 1958, the NHL had had enough of the construction delays, and they relocated the location of the Hockey Hall of Fame to Toronto. Not to be deterred, Kingston finally completed their building in 1965, though it is a different organization known as the “International Hockey Hall of Fame” today. The Hockey Hall of Fame built a Toronto building on the Canadian National Exhibition grounds in 1961. Their New Formalist building officially opened on August 26 of that year.
The Hockey Hall of Fame struggled in its early years. It had high attendance during the Canadian National Exhibition, but entry fees could not be charged, and there were not enough visitors in the remainder of the year. By the mid-1980s, the NHL had to pay over $300,000 a year to keep the Hockey Hall of Fame operating. As a result, they began to look for a new location. Several cities offered to host the Hall of Fame, but it was ultimately decided that it would stay in Toronto in the recently vacated Bank of Montreal Building. BMO had moved its head office in 1949, but it used the building as a branch until 1982. The building was incorporated into the Brookfield Place complex when construction began in 1985, and it was intended to become an art gallery until the Hockey Hall of Fame acquired it.
Opening of the new Hockey Hall of Fame in the former Bank of Montreal Building. (Hockey Hall of Fame)
The Bank of Montreal Building was restored by Spencer Higgins beginning in 1992. The vast majority of the building’s features were maintained, and almost the entire facade is original, aside from six stones that were beyond repair. The Hockey Hall of Fame reopened in 1993. The museum itself has been expanded and modified several times since. Specifically concerning the Esso Great Hall, it was redesigned in 2012.
Photos
Definitely not as people-free as the photos on Wikipedia and the Hockey Hall of Fame’s website…this is a pretty high-traffic area:
The Bank of Montreal Building is an early example of what would become the Beaux-Arts movement of architecture in the United States and Canada. I’m labeling it Baroque Revival due to its elaborate ornamentation and gilding, which is less common on other Beaux-Arts buildings. It also has a pretty unusual exterior expression--two temple fronts facing the two streets, while the chamfered corner entrance has a more Renaissance-y/Baroque portal and entablature.
Zoomed in a bit more on the portal:
A few of the stone elements here appear to be replacements, but the remainder is original. The vaulted entrance is surrounded by four Corinthian pilasters, which support a broken pediment with the seal of Montreal in the middle.
I like this archway and the elaborate carvings surrounding it:
Looking upwards at all the detailed sculpture adorning the building:
Top of the entablature:
I guess this would be considered the parapet, but it’s elongated by a significant degree to accommodate the elaborate dormer at middle and the two pediments on either side.
East facade:
It is part of a larger symmetrical composition, but viewed on its own, this facade is asymmetrical. The pediment and its four richly decorated pilasters anchor this portion, while a fourth bay on the end of the building has an oxeye window and a balustrade above the cornice.
The south facade is exactly the same:
The side also has this smaller portal, with a pediment broken by a circular window:
I was absolutely blown away by the interior of this building. I didn’t get any overall shots, just details. Let’s start with an example of how the walls are treated:
Lots of polychromy here. Brown woodwork, gilded moldings and pilasters, and green walls. This next shot is better lit and focuses on one of the coffered arches:
Intersection of the two angled walls, along with a relief featuring the building’s date of construction and BMO’s seal:
I really love this balustrade and how detailed and intact everything is.
A closer look at the highly ornate clock:
I wonder if these murals were restored or are actually intact from construction?
Looking inside the former bank vault, which houses older Stanley Cups:
One of the detailed window frames, currently obscured by a rather thoughtlessly placed display case:
Okay, now for what we’ve all been waiting for…the amazing stained-glass dome:
It is amazing it survived this long and was restored so excellently. There is such a fine level of detail inside every pane. The coffering of the ceiling is pretty interesting, too.
I grew up a Chicago Blackhawks fan and I was in elementary and middle school during their Stanley Cup wins in 2010, 2013, and 2015. I’ve kind of lost my yen for the NHL since, but it was very nostalgic to see the Stanley Cup that I would stay up late watching Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, et al. win.
Sources:
https://www.hhof.com/general/ourhistory.html
https://www.hhof.com/visit/essogreathallhistory.html
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