Growing up in this city, he was the voice of the Sudbury Wolves, but most people know broadcaster Joe Bowen as the voice of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Known for his enthusiastic calls and his 'Holy Mackinaw' phrase when something on the ice catches his eye, Bowen was inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame's media wing Monday.
After the Wolves, he briefly called games for the Nova Scotia Voyageurs in the AHL before beginning his 36-year run as the voice of the Leafs in the early 1980s. He has now called more than 3,000 games for the team on television and radio, where he currently works with colour commentator Jim Ralph. He's receiving HHOF's 2018 Foster Hewitt Memorial Award.
“I guess you start 37 years ago,” Bowen told Leafs TV broadcaster Paul Hendricks in an interview. “Somebody says you've got your dream job and they're going to pay you — which was absolutely astounding — and then every day you go to work.
“It's still the dream job. It's not 5,000 feet underground at Inco.”
He joins former players George Armstrong, Eddie Giacomin, Toe Blake and former New York Islanders coach Al Arbour as Sudburians in the HHOF. Bowen told Hendricks it's astounding to him that he's being honoured for something he loves so intensely.
“It's extraordinarily humbling because, I mean, it's so much fun to do what we do that you really don't think that there should be any awards for doing it,” he said. “You should just be thankful that you get to do this on a regular basis.”
Bowen is being inducted along with Larry Brooks, longtime hockey writer with the New York Post. They received their awards at a HHOF luncheon in Toronto on Monday. Their award plaques will be displayed in the Esso Great Hall at the Hockey Hall of Fame alongside past award recipients.
“As passionate in the community as he is on the airwaves, Bowen has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for Leukemia research, and was named an ambassador for the city of Sudbury in 2002,” the HHOF fame said in a news release announcing his selection to the hall. “Bowen also received the George Gross Award as Sports Media Canada's broadcaster of the year in 2013.”
Named in honour of the late “Voice of Hockey” in Canada, the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award was first presented in 1984 by the NHL Broadcasters’ Association in recognition of members of the radio and television industry who have made outstanding contributions to their profession and to the game of hockey.
Bowen was born and raised in Sudbury and attended Sudbury High School. He played hockey for the Copper Cliff Redmen. Graduating from the University of Windsor, Bowen returned to Sudbury and did play-by-play for the Sudbury Wolves for eight seasons before heading to Halifax to broadcast for the Nova Scotia Voyageurs.
