Ahead of an in-game tribute next week marking his final season, Joe Bowen, the longtime voice of the Toronto Maple Leafs, recalls the origin of his most iconic on-air expression.

As his dad told it, Bowen said, Joe was a fussing newborn when he first heard what would become his catch phrase. He said his father was holding him, trying to calm him down, as Foster Hewitt’s voice came over the airwaves to announce Toronto’s Bill Barilko had just scored to win the Stanley Cup . That’s when his dad yelled out.

“Holy Mackinaw!”

His dad would go on to repeat it regularly, Bowen said, when they’d watch the Leafs together and their favourite player, Johnny Bower, would make a dazzling save. And he eventually brought it into his play-by-play vocabulary.

Joe Bowen has called Leafs games for ra

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