Unionville, Ont. – Joe Bowen was in a gliding chair in the middle of his cozy suburban basement, and he was telling a story. It was from the fall of 1993, when the Toronto Maple Leafs traveled to London, England, for a preseason series with the New York Rangers, playing to win the “prestigious French’s Mustard Cup.”
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The local technician did not know much about hockey, Bowen said, so the play-by-play booth was installed directly behind the Toronto bench. The announcers jokingly passed notes to Leafs coach Pat Burns, filled with suggestions about line combinations. At intermission, Bowen stretched his legs.
“A Brit came up to me and asked me the greatest question I’ve ever had asked about hockey,” he said. “He came up me, as only they could, and he says, ‘Excuse me: It’s my first game – is it a good one?’”
Bowen laughed loudly.
I had to sit and think and say, ‘you know what? For an exhibition game, it’s not bad,’” he said. “I thought, ‘now, that’s a great question, and it deserved a better answer than what I gave him.”
Bowen has seen plenty of hockey over the last four decades, and not all of it good. Raised in Sudbury, Ont., he called junior hockey before moving to Halifax to call games with the American Hockey League affiliate of the day. He became the radio voice of the Leafs in 1982, and has provided the soundtrack of hockey for a generation of fans in Southern Ontario.
In his basement – a joint shrine to the Leafs, the Green Bay Packers and the University of Notre Dame football team — Bowen (JB) took time out of his day to answer 20 Questions from The Athletic. He spoke about voice maintenance, Stanley Cup calls and that time he sort of appeared in a Hollywood movie.
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1. Holy Mackinaw.
JB: That’s not a question. That’s a statement. But I will tell you where it came from. My dad, who passed away the summer before I went to high school, I would sit on his lap watching the Friday Night Fights, or the Leaf game, and I suppose instead of saying ‘Holy whatever,’ he would blurt out, ‘what a save by Johnny Bower – Holy Mackinaw, did you see that?’”
2. Your father was a doctor in Sudbury: How close were we to knowing you as Dr. Bowen?
JB: Not. At. All. I used to go with my dad to hockey games. And back then, a lot of the goalies weren’t wearing masks. And (one goalie), I think my dad probably put about 400 stitches into his head. And I would go down and watch him sew him up. And no, I wasn’t big on the blood and everything else.
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3. If not for play-by-play, what would you have ended up doing?
JB: I love history, so I would have really enjoyed being a history teacher, professor, or something of that nature. I love American history, and I really enjoy Civil War history.
4. What did you mean when you told a reporter: “I approach my job as a fan, rather than as a broadcaster or a critic?”
JB: I guess because I am. I’m a fan of the game. I’m a fan of the Leafs. I grew up being a Leaf fan. I take great exception to people saying that you’re a homer, because I don’t know what the actual derivation of that term is. I’m broadcasting Toronto Maple Leaf hockey games on the Toronto Maple Leaf radio network to Toronto Maple Leaf fans, who I am assuming want the team to do well. Guess what? So do I.
5. Where is the strangest place you have been recognized for your voice?
JB: [points to photo on the wall, laughs] Right there. Notre Dame dressing room. South Bend, Ind. My very good friend (and Notre Dame senior associate athletics director) John Heisler had taken me on a tour – by myself – into the room. I’d never been there, at Notre Dame Stadium. I walked out onto the field, I came back into the dressing room, up that famous staircase. And another gentleman from Notre Dame was taking a family through on another tour. And as I stood there, taking a picture of one of the Heisman trophies in the case, a kid came up to me and asked: ‘Mr. Bowen, could I have your autograph?’
6. It’s the early ’80s and the Nova Scotia Voyageurs have lost another AHL game: Who is going for a post-game beer with coach John Brophy?
JB: [smiles] Me. No one else would go near the man. I loved Broph, and we had many, many a night on the road after a game when we would be the ones in the bar, and we would get into enormous arguments. He would start on something, and we’d get into the ‘F-U’ fights. And then, at seven o’clock the next morning, it was, ‘what are you doing? Coming down for breakfast? All right. See you in a bit.’ It was completely forgotten.
7. How intense was he?
JB: He was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Away from the game, and away from the pressures of it, you couldn’t have met a nicer guy who would want to do things for you, who would take the shirt off his back to help you. But once he got into the rink, his eyes rolled into the back of his head. It’s really a crime that he didn’t have the skillset of a successful player. Because with his intensity, I could only imagine what he might have been. As it was, he was mayhem on skates because he had no skill. But he had more intensity than any of them.
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8. You reportedly beat out nine other candidates for the Leafs radio job in 1982 …
JB: [interrupts] Nine? Holy smokes. I didn’t know that.
9. What did you say when they first called you for a tryout?
JB: [laughs] I had bought a house. And my bank manager had phoned me on the Wednesday to tell me that, at 23 points on the dollar, I now owned a home in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. I got a phone call after coming back from doing the morning radio run from a gentleman who said his name was Len Bramson, from Telemedia Sports. And he wanted me to fly to Toronto to do the exhibition game with the Leafs and the Oilers on Saturday night as an audition. I thought it was Allan Davis, who was a good friend of mine who had gone to Toronto and was working for them, and had told me about the opening and to send my tapes in. And I said: ‘Allan, f— off. I have just bought a house here. I don’t need you f—ing around with me, giving me this bullshit about this job because I know I’m not getting it.’ And finally, when I came up for air, Mr. Bramson said, ‘Uh, no, this isn’t Allan Davis. This is Len Bramson, the president of Telemedia Sports.’
10. Hockey players are known to be superstitious. What about play-by-play voices?
JB: Oh yeah. My sons and I would drive to the game. We had to leave at a specific time. We had to go the same route. There’s lots of little things.
11. What did you tell Steven Stamkos to do before the 2008 NHL Entry Draft?
JB: [smiles] I told him to pull an Eric Lindros and just say, ‘No, I’m not going. I want to play for the Toronto Maple Leafs.’ His dad and I are dear, dear friends. We’ve played ball together for almost 30 years, in our men’s league here. So I’ve known Steven since before he was even a glint in his dad’s eye. Just a tremendous young man.
12. You almost beat Stamkos to a job in Tampa Bay by more than a decade, with talks of calling games down there: How would Joe Bowen fare year-round under the Florida sun?
JB: Oh, I don’t know. It really never got too serious about going down there. It would have been great; American money and various other things. But I love Toronto. This is home, and always has been. All of my boys were big-time hockey players and still are. It would have been different, certainly.
13. Where was the worst booth you’ve ever had to work?
JB: Worst booth? A lot of these new arenas, each year, seem to provide you with a new worst view. We haven’t been to Edmonton yet, but I’m told that where we work now is somewhere in a different area code than the actual arena. In Dallas, you need a paperboy to tell you what the score is, because it’s a rumour down there, too.
14. How have you been celebrating the 30th anniversary of your work in the Hollywood hockey movie “Youngblood?”
JB: [laughs loudly] I’m not even sure I’m in it, other than the credits.
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15. Could Rob Lowe skate?
JB: No. Not a lick. I mean, they almost had to push him around. Patrick Swayze could move around a little bit.
16. You are known for your loud voice in the booth. Where are you loudest away from the rink?
JB: Baseball diamond. Probably coaching my sons’ teams. Coaching third base. Or first base.
17. What do you do to maintain your voice?
JB: Yell at baseball games a lot. [laughs] I try not to have dairy products, like milk or stuff like that, before a game. If you feel anything, I get Life Savers, and I’ll put one in almost like a chew. The best lubricant is saliva. I don’t drink or gargle tea. If I do feel like this, I have a sauna. I’ll get in that and try to sweat it out.
18. There have been some lean times around here: How do you make bad hockey sound interesting?
JB: You know what? I think it’s because I’ve been blessed with some really, really good people who have made it fun. Not all 82 are going to be gems, and not every period of all 82 are going to be gems. Right now, working with (Jim Ralph) is entertaining. We have fun. We hope that the audience enjoys it, because otherwise, all you’re going to hear is the clicking – if they change channels or turn the radio off.
19. Give me the final few seconds of your call when the Leafs win the Stanley Cup.
JB: Oh, I can’t. Simply because I won’t rehearse it. And I think, if you do, it’s going to sound just like that. A lot of things will flash through your mind: The hundreds of thousands of people you have met who are Leaf fans, many of whom are not here. I watched the Cubs this year, and it tears at your heart strings – a son taking a transistor radio to a graveyard to listen to a Game 7 with his dad. We’re getting into that area of length. I’ll think of my dad. I’ll be surprised if I didn’t mention my dad somewhere in there, because he was such a huge Leafs fan.
20. Complete the following sentence: Old play-by-play voices never die, they just …
JB: [smiles, laughs] Go silent.
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