Completing 44 seasons calling the Maple Leafs on radio and TV, Joe Bowen is retiring this spring.
During this last season for the Hall of Famer, Postmedia will tap into Joe’s vast storybook for tales about select Leafs opponents through the years, many famous players and bygone NHL arenas.
With back-to-back games against the Sabres this weekend, here is Joe’s perspective on the Buffalo-Toronto rivalry:
The venerable Memorial Auditorium and what’s now called KeyBank Center were a home away from home for Bowen and thousands of Maple Leafs fans on game night.
The short drive, cheaper tickets — with maybe a Bills game or cross-border shopping tossed in — often sold out, often in Toronto’s favour if the Sabres were in lean times.
“One that vividly stands out is (March 15) 2004, one Harry Neale and I did on TV,” Bowen said. “Leafs were down three and rallied to make it 5-5. Alex Mogilny’s 1,000th NHL point tied it when Toronto pulled Trevor Kidd and, when the puck went in, this mass of blue humanity, all Leafs fans, seemed to rise up the glass at once. It was crazy for a road game.
“Then Mogilny assisted on Tomas Kaberle’s 6-5 overtime winner. Kaberle was known for passing a lot and Harry’s great line was ‘I’d never take Kaberle hunting. He never shoots.’”
Neale, Darryl Sittler and many Toronto-area hockey personalities had homes on the Niagara Frontier, which made games in both cities even more intimate. Bowen broke in when the Aud was still one of the most cramped, intimidating rinks in the NHL, with lively glass and boards that bent with every big hit while the organist in the pre-canned-music era pumped out Khachaturian’s ballet classic Sabre Dance.
“A great old barn,” Bowen said. “Lots of characters, such as the guy who sold beer and danced in the stands during timeouts (The Earl of Bud, a day-time Buffalo firefighter).”
But if a league or media person spent too long working post-game, most lights and the elevators were often shut off without warning, requiring a grope down a dark staircase railing. Guard dogs also were roaming the main floor corridor after hours.
Bowen worked for a time in the booth beside the Sabres’ legendary late commentator Ted Darling and afterwards his son Joel, who was with Hockey Night in Canada.
But two of the most distinctive voices on radio were that of Bowen and his opposite number on the Sabres, Rick Jeanneret.
“God rest his soul, Ricky was so unique, had so much fun and enjoyed interacting with fans. Who can forget the ‘Mayday!, Mayday!, Mayday!’ goal, one of the most iconic calls in league history.”
Darling, Jeanneret and Bowen are all winners of the Foster Hewitt Award. Before they stopped travelling to Leafs road games, Bowen and current partner Jim Ralph were stationed very close to Toronto fans in the KeyBank press box and often had their names chanted.
Yet Bowen is as bamboozled as anyone about the general lack of success the Leafs have managed n Buffalo through the years, despite the strong travel support. Even with the Sabres failing to make the playoffs the past 14 years, they still enjoy a 68-37 edge in regulation wins versus Hogtown, with six overtime triumphs and six old-time ties.
The influx of fans sometimes has a galvanizing effect on the home team.
“I don’t know what it was. Maybe a Red Sox kind of curse. Just before I got here (in game on March 19, 1981), they went into the Aud and lost 14-4,” Bowen recalled.
Bunny Larocque started that night and gave up nine in the second period alone before Jiri Crha finished. Those blotches remain the modern-day franchise records for most goals against in a period and a game.
“I remember the Buffalo crowd, which in those days of the French Connection would yell as the score went up, ‘1-2-3-4, we want five’. That night, they were going ‘2-4-6-8′, then ‘3-6-9-12.’”
Toronto and Buffalo have met just once in playoffs to date, the 1999 conference final with the Leafs gifted the mysterious illness absence of the great Sabre goalie Dominik Hasek for the first two games at Air Canada Centre. But they only worked a split with Dwayne Roloson in net and Buffalo beat them at the ACC twice to clinch in five.
“So disappointing,” Bowen said with a sigh. “That was a Leafs team that had a chance to go all the way (to face the Dallas Stars in the Cup final).”
Sabres enforcer Rob Ray called that series “ten times more entertaining” than the Buffalo-Dallas Cup final that followed.
There were some other Leafs-Sabres fireworks on Bay Street, though Bowen and most others couldn’t see the aftermath of a Shayne Corson-Ray verbal spat in a bitter 2001 game with player ejections.
One of Ray’s chirps set off Corson’s brother-in-law, Darcy Tucker, who stormed down the Leafs tunnel and took a hard left towards the Sabres’ dressing room, challenging Ray to come out and fight.
In a 2013 exhibition game, there were two unlikely gladiators: Big John Scott of the Sabres and 5-foot-11 Phil Kessel.
Enraged that Toronto winger Jamie Devane had beaten up a smaller Sabre, Scott menaced the Leafs bench before a faceoff and warned coach Randy Carlyle “whoever you put out, I’ll beat the crap out of.”
Carlyle sent his first line with the non-confrontational Kessel to try and ease tensions, but Scott wasn’t kidding, despite his eight-inch, 60-pound advantage. Kessel started wildly lumberjacking Scott’s skates in self-defence.
“I knew Kessel would’ve been killed,” Bowen said with a laugh. “But he could also skate away a lot faster than Scott to save himself.”
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