The Toronto Maple Leafs are expected to name Todd Crocker as their new radio play-by-play voice, replacing the retired Joe Bowen alongside longtime analyst Jim Ralph, according to a report from the Toronto Star’s Jonah Sigel.
Bowen announced last June that the 2025-26 season would be his last, closing out a 44-year run and more than 3,800 games that began in 1982 and included 12 years alongside Harry Neale before nearly three decades paired with Ralph.
For the final five of those seasons, Sportsnet and TSN had Bowen and Ralph call road games from a TV monitor in a Toronto studio rather than travel with the team, a cost-cutting move that started during COVID and never fully reversed. Bowen later admitted that the arrangement, which contributed to a botched call in one of the more memorable moments in recent franchise history, was part of why he decided to retire.
“For the last five years we’ve had to broadcast road games off TV monitors,” Bowen said. “That’s not what I signed up for.”
Bowen’s final home broadcast came in April, a 6-5 loss to the Dallas Stars that included an in-game videoboard tribute and a locker-room-style salute from Tavares, William Nylander and the rest of the roster at center ice; the Scotiabank Arena broadcast booth will carry Bowen’s name going forward. His final game overall came four days later on the road against the Ottawa Senators.
Crocker has spent multiple seasons as the radio voice of the Toronto Marlies, the Maple Leafs’ AHL affiliate, most recently calling the team’s run to the Calder Cup Final, and has also appeared regularly on Leafs media programming as a prospects and organizational-depth analyst. He filled in on Leafs radio broadcasts in January 2025 when Bowen missed a game for the first time in 43 years to watch his beloved Notre Dame in that year’s National Championship.
Neither Sportsnet nor TSN has publicly addressed whether Crocker will be subject to the same remote-broadcast policy for road games that Bowen cited as a factor in his retirement.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.