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Fans of the Maple Leafs Furious Following Latest Decision from Sportsnet
Photo credit: Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images
Maple Leafs fans everywhere are once again outraged after a bizarre decision by Sportsnet that will impact two very important members of the organization.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have a 2-0 series lead over their divisional foes, the Florida Panthers, in their second round series, which now moves to Florida for Games 3 and 4.
However, just as was the case with Toronto's road games in their opening round series against the Ottawa Senators, Sportsnet is not sending popular radio commentators Joe Bowen and Jim Ralph to the Sunshine State.
Instead, they'll once again be calling the game by watching it on a monitor from a Toronto studio.
Considering the money that both the Maple Leafs and Sportsnet each bring in yearly, it's nothing short of a strange (and frankly disrespectful) decision to force the iconic play-by-play duo to call the games on a screen as if it were still the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
While it's true that they haven't traveled with the team since that tumultuous year, there's really no reason to not send them to call these critical playoff games in person.
Former Sportsnet employee Howard Berger took Sportsnet to task in late April, blasting them with a scathing blog post.
"The multi-billion-dollar communications behemoths could not scrape up enough petty cash for Bowen and Ralph to travel all the way to Ottawa. So, the veteran broadcast duo will again be forced to call Games 3 and 4 off a TV screen at the Sportsnet studio. What a complete travesty. There is cheap then there is something like this, which doesn't warrant an adjective."
Bowen has been behind the microphone for Leafs games since 1982. He and Ralph have worked together as a duo since 2014 when he shifted from television broadcasts to radio.
| POLL | ||
MAI 9 | 5203 ANSWERS Fans of the Maple Leafs Furious Following Latest Decision from Sportsnet Is Sportsnet being cheap by not sending the popular Leafs commentators on the road? | ||
| Yes | 4852 | 93.3 % |
| No | 351 | 6.7 % |
| List of polls | ||
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