Joe Bowen Is Retiring. Here's What Leafs Fans Are Really Losing.

New Year's Eve, 2012. The night before the winter Classic in Detroit, Michigan. The Zac Brown Band concert. I bump into a grey haired man with his wife. I’d never seen anyone so jovial. He was holding two beers, judging by his red cheeked glow, he had probably had a couple already. He was wearing an Ireland scarf and had a massive grin. An absolute beauty. I was face to face with Joe Bowen. I pointed out that I was an admirer, and that I really admired his beverages. He actually offered me one of his beers but I declined.

Joe Bowen is the long serving play by play guy for the Toronto Maple Leafs. I grew up watching and listening to Mr. Bowen call hockey games back in the days of Leafs TV - a channel I miraculously had access to at the age of 13. I was particularly fond of his goaltender intros, always built on triple alliteration. Something like "Technicians of the tangled twine"(There’s a nice list on reddit here).

His passion always rang through. The sheer pleasure he derived from the Maple Leafs was so genuine. They are qualities that the fan base needs badly as it potentially enters the dark half of the NHL success cycle. We may never have anyone affiliated with the Maple Leafs like Joe Bowen again. Unfortunately that's a conscious choice that the organization is making.

This is significant because Bowen is the personification of a critical issue that is never discussed when it comes to Hockey in Toronto. It is not discussed as it is benign and a fact of life to most who love the team. It is derived from the way Rogers and MLSE chose to handle its Maple Leafs broadcasts on Sportsnet and Hockey Night. 

Joe Bowen was the Leafs TV guy until 2014 when Rogers purchased the NHLs broadcasting rights. He was moved to the radio because Sportsnet wanted their premier national broadcasters to cover the Leafs. While this doesn’t seem like a significant issue, it really does matter. Sportsnet almost always has the Leafs on as a national broadcast. They also know that they get criticism from other parts of the country for paying too much attention to or favouring the Leafs. The solution? Doing what CBC had been doing for years on hockey night: stay neutral. Have play by play guys that call the game like an objective observer. Have intermission panels that are always neutral. 

Other teams like the Buffalo Sabres had Rick Jeanneret. The Bruins had Jack Edwards calling all of their games. These two are famous because they gave their fan bases a uniting voice — a person that encapsulates the emotions of the people watching the game. There is something cathartic about hearing your hometown bias reflected in the narration. You see it with another Rogers property: the Toronto Blue Jays. It was amazing when Jerry Howarth or Buck Martinez called the games because you knew they were on your side. The playoff run last year with Buck and Dan made the broadcast and the experience that much better. It turned the media into allies, they were part of the team. Your guides on the adventure. They were there to connect you to the game, and to the team. They were not there to be journalists and critical all the time. 

So, why does this matter? It’s because when you examine the predicament through a lens of team culture, it becomes vital. There are the tangible benefits for fans getting a better experience. There is also an updraft that comes from the good vibes and emotions from enfranchised media employed by the team. People that want you to win and who aren’t just there to write a story. Then there is something deeper about what it represents from MLSE and Rogers.

This is not a knock on Chris Cuthbert, who is an amazing play-by-play guy — probably my favourite in the business from a sheer talent perspective— but he doesn’t love the Leafs. Nor is it his job to. The Oilers have Jack Michaels (clearly a fan). The Habs have John Bartlett, (clearly a fan who by the way used to call Leafs games - brutal). Of course we can't forget the Jim Hughson days. The 2017 "The defender, lost his stick" comes to mind. Have a listen on Youtube. (Here’s Joe Bowen calling the same play by the way) 

These guys aren't bad play-by-play voices. But they are not Toronto Maple Leafs fans. They are excellent at their craft, but they aren't one of us. What that gives you is a neutral voice for your sportscasting when fans really do just want that pro-Leafs voice. By contrast, there's an entire online  subculture of people watching Leafs games and highlights synced up to the Joe Bowen call instead of whatever Sportsnet caster they had assigned.

Bonesie was not the most talented broadcaster in the industry. He barely had any famous signature calls, really. But when the Leafs scored a big overtime winner, or a goaltender made a giant save, his passion rang through the radio or TV screen. You felt connected with that. It materially made your viewing experience better. It validated externally what you were feeling internally. It gave us a fantastic way to experience and share the moment both during and afterwards. It made you more of a fan.

Without Bowen, that is gone. With the Rogers regime, it will likely stay gone — because they don't want to service Leafs fans that way. It's an irony of their success as the top NHL franchise as far as popularity. The Leafs are almost always the national broadcast. Most diehard Leafs fans know this and will agree. They want desperately to have a homer play-by-play guy on the TV. Yet they are denied.

On a higher level, this is an allegory for the central crux of what's wrong with the Maple Leafs these days. Their ownership group is not completely focused on winning. It is more so focused on making money.  They bring in amazing business people. They likely aren't bringing in enough die hard Maple Leafs fans. Unfortunately, this means that the organization is being run by people who care more about their careers than the Maple Leafs winning Stanley Cups.

Brendan Shanahan, for example, did a good job of getting things back on the rails, but he is not predominantly a Leafs fan. He repaired the relationship with some storied alumni, but he lived in the US while he ran the team. Kyle Dubas was in talks with Pittsburgh long before he left. It is likely the same for all these executives and decision makers. They are hockey people. Not Maple Leafs people.

This exasperates the known issue with the Toronto market. It is the Mecca of hockey, and some people can’t cut it here. The pressure makes decision makers take a path that reflect well on them, not necessarily on the team. For instance, look at Brad Treliving's hesitance to tank, or Craig Berube trying his darnest to win garbage time hockey games. It would make sense, then, that we'd want lifelong Leafs fans in the key roles and positions of power. It’s ultimately why Marner leaving didn’t bother so many people: even though he was a local guy, you could tell he cared more about the name on the back of the jersey than the front. 

This issue is in lockstep with the incredibly corporate nature of MLSE. This is not a comment on work ethic or care level, but the people running things are operating inside an extremely corporate culture. It is an environment with Bay Street incentives: tow the line, cover your ass, keep your job. Do what you can to climb the corporate ladder. It is completely different from the culture you’d expect from a winning organization.

Most saliently, this is antithetical to the heart of Leafs nation: the blue collared people like Joe Bowen. The organization is not run by those people. That is why the rink is so quiet that it is nicknamed the Library. Perhaps it doesn't matter though, because despite that silence, the Leafs are still always among the top earners in the NHL. 

This, it would seem, is yet another competitive advantage for small market teams in a salary cap environment. The Panthers and the Golden Knights are businesses too but they need to be relevant to make money. They need to win to be relevant. That shines through. The Leafs are victims of their own dominant financial success. They don’t need to be good to be relevant. 

Bowen’s last decade is a perfect simulacrum for that problem. He was a real fan, and relegated to the background on the radio while the suits got the better seats and jobs on TV. The people with the passion are pushed to the background. They sit in the Greens and Purples while the ones who couldn’t care less get the Platinums. This is most problematic because hockey, more than any sport, is a game of passion. 

You can have a plan, but it happens too fast for exact measurements. It's impossible to draw up a perfect play because there are too many variables. You do need that “it” factor. That commitment and effort to a cause greater than oneself. It's not like football or baseball with individual assignments and constant timeouts. There's too much going on. You need creativity, you need the passion.

Joe Bowen was the last vestige of that passion.

With him gone, and with the new TV deal about to kick in, there is an opportunity for MLSE and their ownership group — Rogers, who controls the lion's share of the broadcast — to make this right. Stop worrying about neutrality. Give us a homer Leafs play-by-play guy. Someone who understands what the fans are going through, who actually cares, and who wants what we want. It's one small thing, but they say the way you do anything is the way you do everything.

My favourite Joe Bowen call was when the Leafs qualified for the playoffs in 2017, Auston Matthews' first season. Connor Brown scored a go ahead goal late. Curtis McElhinney made that big save with a minute left against Sidney Crosby. “Holy Mackinaw, they’re going to the playoffs!”. I was at that game in person, and the call is somehow stitched into my mind as a fundamental part of the experience. That was because there was hope in Joe’s voice, and there was his passion. 

Eventually because it was more cost effective, they stopped sending Bowen on the road to call games. He got to watch on a TV screen and try and do play by play from a studio. Another hit to passion because of the bottom line. He retires this week after a hall of fame career. 

The lesson should be that that is exactly the kind of thinking that slowly destroys an organization in the long run. It's a systemic problem. It comes from the top. It needs to be addressed. 

Whoever the Leafs hire next needs to understand that. They need to be a great hockey mind, but the most important thing is understanding Leafs fans and their psyche. If the organization and its players are in harmony with its fan base, that will create the conditions that attract the southern Ontario boys home. It will make Toronto a good place to play again.

The only way to do that is to hire a sad and woeful and never say die Maple Leafs fan to run the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The fact that Keith Pelley had to outsource the hiring of this role in the first place is not at all encouraging. It represents a fundamental disconnect between the board of MLSE, Rogers, and it’s crown jewel sports team. Cynically, that probably means the corporate through line is not going to change. Until it does, the real fans, guys like Joe Bowen, are likely going to have to endure more of the same. 

To Mr. Bowen, from another woeful, die hard, love this team forever kind of guy: You are forever the voice of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Thanks Joe. And Holy Mackinaw, what a career.