Completing 44 season calling the Maple Leafs on radio and TV, Joe Bowen is retiring this month.<\/p>\n
During this final season for the Hall of Famer, Postmedia is tapping into Joe\u2019s vast storybook of select Leaf opponents, many famous\u00a0players\u00a0and bygone arenas.<\/p>\n
With Toronto completing its tour of Anaheim, San Jose and Los Angeles, he recalls the teams many adventures in sunny California \u2014 and one dark evening at the Great Western Forum:<\/p>\n
Bowen will hang up the headset having never called a Stanley Cup final.<\/p>\n
But he remembers\u00a0every detail of the\u00a0night\u00a0the\u00a0Leafs\u00a0were\u00a0a high stick away from meeting the Montreal Canadiens in what\u00a0would\u2019ve\u00a0been a classic\u00a0Cup.<\/p>\n
Many bitter fans can tell you where they watched May 27, 1993, when Kerry Fraser ruled Wayne Gretzky had not lifted his lumber into Doug Gilmour\u2019s mush and No. 99 stayed around to score the Game 6 power-play overtime winner. Blood-inducing high sticks were classified as automatic majors at the time.<\/p>\n
Bowen and analyst Gord Stellick\u00a0had a\u00a0perfect\u00a0view\u00a0in a section of lower bowl seats that formed the\u00a0media\u00a0area at the Forum.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely saw the high stick,\u201d Bowen said of Gilmour\u2019s cut chin and the Leafs arguing with Fraser. \u201cWhat really pissed me off was we all went out after the game, one of the officials was there and told me \u2018the puck hit (Gilmour).\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI said \u2018how? What did he do, dive on it\u2019?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cL.A. won the series, but that incident prompted a rule change the next year that you didn\u2019t get kicked out for a high stick.\u201d<\/p>\n
The league\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0have today\u2019s video review\u00a0technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll go to my grave believing that when the three officials got together (Fraser and linesmen Kevin Collins and Ron Finn), one of them had to have said \u2018we can\u2019t kick Wayne Gretzky out of the game.\u2019 No bleepin\u2019 way they couldn\u2019t have said it because there would\u2019ve been a bleepin\u2019 riot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hollywood stars taking in Leafs-Kings games<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Leafs\u00a0entourage often rubbed shoulders with Hollywood\u00a0stars\u00a0through the years\u00a0in L.A., many of them\u00a0game-night\u00a0guests of the\u00a0Kings.<\/p>\n
Bowen\u2019s one-time\u00a0colour\u00a0man was Larry Mann, the dour-faced actor from Toronto who was in The Sting, among other movies,\u00a0TV\u00a0spots\u00a0and\u00a0commercials.<\/p>\n
During that series against the Kings, the Leafs stayed ocean-side in Santa Monica at the swank Loews hotel. One night, there was a pool party there featuring members of the Beach Boys and Get Smart\/Love Boat actor Bernie Kopell.<\/p>\n
Bowen was sitting in the Loews lobby when a contingent of St. John\u2019s Maple Leafs. who had been promoted for playoffs, urged him to come down to the water. Coaches Joel Quennville, Marc Crawford and a few of the Black Aces had come back from practice and noticed the crew from the TV series Baywatch were filming an episode.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d never seen Baywatch, but down we all go, everyone taking their tarps off, strutting their stuff. And there she was, Pamela Anderson.\u201d<\/p>\n
The British Columbia-born\u00a0former Playboy Playmate\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0disappoint\u00a0the live audience.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe did a running scene and I immediately became a big fan of the show,\u201d Bowen said with a laugh.<\/p>\n
Arrival of the Mighty Ducks<\/p>\n
The next season was the arrival of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, joining the San Jose Sharks to make California trips more meaningful for the Leafs and other NHL teams. Despite some rough early years, \u2018The Pond\u2019 was one of the NHL\u2019s most beautiful arenas, set among the palm trees.<\/p>\n
In 2011-12,\u00a0Joe\u00a0and son Sean (once\u00a0part of the\u00a0travelling\u00a0broadcast crew)\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0resist\u00a0the lure of their beloved Notre Dame football team playing\u00a0a short flight away near San Jose.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a non-game day, we thought we\u2019d see the football, stay overnight and fly back in the morning for Leafs-Ducks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we get to the airport next morning to return and it\u2019s completely fogged in. They kept telling us \u2018you can\u2019t get out.\u2019 I\u2019m panicking and it was getting too late to try the (six-hour) drive back. But around 3 p.m., the fog lifted and we just made the game in time.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a couple of years getting established at the historic Cow Palace, San Jose set up at the new noisy Shark Tank, now the SAP Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe that\u00a0was the loudest\u00a0building\u00a0I ever\u00a0did\u00a0a playoff game (1994),\u201d Bowen\u00a0said. \u201cThe ceiling was flat and metal and we were so\u00a0close\u00a0to it that everything just reverberated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a great series. Johan Garpenlov almost winning it in Game 6 off the crossbar in overtime at the Gardens (Mike Gartner\u2019s goal rescued the Leafs, who then won in seven). Talk about leading a charmed life.\u201d<\/p>\n