Maple Leafs kick radio crew off team charters to road games

Toronto Maple Leafs management won’t allow its radio broadcast crew to travel on team charters this season, a new development that will leave long-time play-by-play voice Joe Bowen calling road games off a television feed inside a Toronto studio, the Star's Sean Fitz-Gerald reports.
The team informed the broadcasters of its policy change as training camps opened this month. In Toronto, TSN Radio 1050 and Sportsnet 590 The Fan split the radio rights — with the parent companies, BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications, respectively, holding a majority stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment.
“We have a new team policy this year, in that team charters are going to be for the team,” Leafs spokesman Steve Keogh said Monday.
“They’re not on the plane, no.” He said the radio crew was allowed on the charter flights last year, and while he could not say how long that practice had been in place, he believed it had been “for some time.”
Bowen and Jim Ralph, the long-time colour analyst, were informed late last week. Keogh said the decision was not part of any broader tightening of editorial control by the franchise.
The full Star story