Friends, fans on Joe Bowen's memorable calls in 44 Maple Leaf years

For Tuesday night’s home game versus the Blackhawks, Joe Bowen has been invited down from his familiar broadcast booth above Scotiabank Arena to be celebrated at the centre ice dot.

The turning of the calendar year will start a countdown to his retirement as the 44-year voice of the Maple Leafs, and he’ll be officially honoured by the team prior to Toronto hosting the Blackhawks. Bowen, 74, worked his first game on Oct. 6, 1982, at Chicago Stadium. Joe’s son David, a budding broadcaster with the OHL Sudbury Wolves, will work Tuesday’s game while Bowen rests his lungs. 

The Toronto Sun asked a range of Toronto hockey personalities for a favourite Bowen call or personal memory:

STEVEN LORENTZ, Leaf winger: “I’ll start with the easy one, ‘Holy Mackinaw’. You get to hear that a lot and it’s a treat.

“I just love listening to him because it brings back so many great memories from my childhood. I’d be in the car with my Dad after practice, listening to the Leaf game. Joe painted a picture like you were watching it live.

“I wish I could raise kids and have those same moments. He’s going to be missed, he’s a legend around here and he’s had a hell of a career.”

MORGAN RIELLY, Leaf defenceman: “In my first couple of years, he was still flying with us and be sitting in the back of the plane. So every time I had to climb over the seats to go to the bathroom, I’d talk with him.

“That experience was so new to me and provided some great memories.”

MARK OSBORNE, Leaf forward in the 1990s: “Game 7 in Detroit in ‘93, Joe Nikky Borschevsky’s overtime goal. After I’d finished playing we’d always talk about that and he was so exhausted by the end of those (21) playoff games.

“Him and (colour man) Billy Watters hanging out with us on the road was quite a time.”

GORD STELLICK, Bowen’s former radio analyst: “It was amazing to be sitting next to Joe on the Borschevsky call. Driving home from Detroit in the middle of the night with (TV producer) Mark Askin, we just had to pull over on the 401 to hear it again.

“I was involved in the process to hire Joe in ‘82 (Stellick was in the Leaf hockey office). We’d listened to a lot of audition tapes for a new play-by-play person, but it was his friend Allan Davis at CJCL who asked if we’d heard Joe’s. It was incredible energy and as it was almost the start of the season, we picked him on the strength of that tape alone.”

PAUL PATSKOU, Leafs historian-video archivist: “In the early 2000s, we were putting together one of those (1960s era) Leaf Classic Games for Leafs TV. After Larry Hillman finished a taping, I mentioned he’d put a Stanley Cup hex on the Leafs (for not giving the defenceman a raise).

“Joe, with his loud voice, yelled something like ‘you’d better lift that (bleeping) curse’.”

CONNOR BROWN, former Leaf (from an earlier interview) “For my family, growing up with the Leafs on Saturday night, they were always connected with Joe.

“He’s meant a lot to the city and done a great job for many years and he’s an even better person.”

ZACH HYMAN, former Leaf (from an earlier interview):

“Mats Sundin’s short-handed, game-winner in overtime (2006), is what I most remember. And the one in 2017 where we needed to win to make the playoffs (after four years out), Curtis McElhinney made that huge save on Sidney Crosby.  Brownie had scored with about three minutes to go to put us ahead, Crosby had a one-timer with an empty net and there was Joe’s ‘Holy McElhinney!’ Moment.

“We all got a kick out of him saying that.”

JIMMY HOLMSTROM, Scotiabank Arena organist: “It had to be when Joe shouted ‘Bless you boys!’ (after a Game 6 win during the 2002 opening round comeback against Ottawa). That was quite a playoff series (the Leafs beset by injuries). ‘

“Bless you boys’ made me cry. I was working that game and didn’t hear it live, but I’ve listened to it a million times since.”

PAUL HENDRICK, retired Leafs TV host: “Former Leaf equipment man Scott McKay who once said of Joe, ‘you could hear him even if he wrote his name on a cocktail napkin’.

“I’ll always think of Bonesie as loud and proud, especially when it came to his boys, his grandchildren and of course, his Leafs. That ‘Bless you boys’, will never stop inspiring me.”

BRIAN MCFARLANE, retired Hockey Night In Canada host (from one of his books): “I asked Joe and Bill one incident that really cracked them up and Joe said the night the Leafs were in Edmonton and had just signed ‘that noted plumber from Czechoslovakia, Miroslav Ihnacak’.

“The kid wanted to make an impression and took a run at Mark Messier,” Bowen continued. “Rams his nose right into Messier’s elbow. There’s blood all over the place and Billy says, “I think the poor guy’s got CCM tattooed on his bugle.

“That did it. Here they are scraping poor Ihnacak off the ice and we’re busting our guts laughing in the booth. The game gets back underway and I still can’t control the laughter so I went to a commercial – in the middle of play. I’d never done that before. Luckily, there were no goals and the game was on radio, not TV.”

MIKE WILSON, The ‘Ultimate Leafs Fan’: “Joe had a lot of great calls, but what stood out for me was Sundin’s late goal in Game 6 of the 2002 conference final against Carolina that pushed it to overtime.

“Joe said, ‘Don’t tell me about heart, dedication and resilience! It should be on the dressing room walls!’”

“On a personal note, away from hockey, I’ve had the privilege of travelling with Joe to a Notre Dame football game. The bus was decorated with in school colours, he played the fight song, the Alma Mater song and sang every word. He never leaves a game until he joins the players and the student section in that Alma Mater song.

“Just a cool moment.”

CHRISTINE DIMOFF, Ladies Talkin’ Leafs Podcast: “One of my favourite Bowen calls was Nov. 10, 1996, the Felix Potvin – Ron Hextall goalie fight. He was incredibly detailed. When Hextall’s jersey came off, Joe even said, ‘That’s a fine.’”

SYLVIA HARGITTAY, Ladies Talkin’ Leafs Podcast: “I’ve always thought the mark of a great sports call is the ability to transport you right back to the moment. And one that still gets me out of my seat is Joe on Steve Thomas’s overtime winner in the playoffs against Ottawa in 2000.”

JIM RALPH, Bowen’s current Leafs radio analyst: ‘That ‘bless you boys’ game stands out because with each big play and each goal, you could see and hear Joe get to a higher level of excitement. To the point I was worried if he could keep it together and finish the game.

“What I’ll always be grateful for is the chance we had to visit a lot of great cities and see the hockey world. One trip to Florida was during spring training and we had tickets to a Jays-Red Sox game. They announce, ‘Now batting for Boston, the first baseman Lars Anderson.’

“In that loud delivery of his, Joe blasts out, ‘Lars Anderson? Who the hell is Lars Anderson?’

“The couple in front of us turn slowly around and ‘he’s our son.’

“Without missing a beat Joe replies, “and a fine player he is.”

Lhornby@postmedia.com

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