Patrick Francis Marsden (November 8, 1936 – April 27, 2006) was a
Canadian sportscaster and voice of the
Canadian Football League play-by-play coverage in the 1970s and 1980s. He also worked as host for the historic 1972 Canada-Soviet Union hockey
Summit Series
The Summit Series, Super Series 72, Canada–USSR Series (russian: Суперсерия СССР — Канада, Superseriya SSSR — Kanada), or Series of the Century (french: Série du siècle, Séries of the Century), was an eight-game ic ...
sports telecasts. He was inducted into the
Canadian Football Hall of Fame
The Canadian Football Hall of Fame (CFHOF) is a not-for-profit corporation, located in Hamilton, Ontario, that celebrates great achievements in Canadian football. It is maintained by the Canadian Football League (CFL). It includes displays about t ...
in 1989.
Marsden was born in
Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
and attended
St. Patrick's High School and the
University of Ottawa, where he started his sportscasting career at local station
CKOY.
He later became sports director at
CFTO in
Toronto, and became immersed in all local and national sporting events. He even appeared as "John Marsden" in an episode of ''
Bizarre
Bizarre may refer to:
*Bizarre (rapper) (born 1976), an American rapper and member of hip hop group D12
* Bizarre (band), a Spanish rock band
* ''Bizarre'' (TV series), a Canadian sketch comedy television series
* ''Bizarre'' (magazine), a siste ...
'' (filmed at CFTO), in a
Super Dave Osborne stunt
A stunt is an unusual and difficult physical feat or an act requiring a special skill, performed for artistic purposes usually on television, theaters, or cinema. Stunts are a feature of many action films. Before computer generated imagery spec ...
at Toronto's
CN Tower.
Fired in 1986 after a physical altercation with his boss Ted Stuebing, Marsden then was hired by his
CTV
CTV may refer to:
Television
* Connected TV, or Smart TV, a TV set with integrated internet
North America and South America
* CTV Television Network, a Canadian television network owned by Bell Media
** CTV 2, a secondary Canadian televisio ...
football broadcasting partner Bill Stephenson at
CFRB, went to
TSN
TSN may refer to:
Science and technology
* Translin, DNA binding protein involved in microRNA function
* Taxonomic serial number, a stable and unique taxonomic serial number issued by the Integrated Taxonomic Information System
* The Science Netwo ...
, and later surfaced at
The Fan 590. After helping to rebuild and essentially help create the image for The Fan 590, he retired in 2004.
Marsden spent most of his time in
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...
due to what he felt was the ''socialization of Canadian society'', but he continued to maintain a home in
Toronto.
He returned in 1996 to live in
Toronto with his family joining him and died of
lung cancer
Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, malign ...
on April 27, 2006, aged 69, at
Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre.
References
Pat Marsden, 69: Colourful broadcaster Toronto Star
Canada.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marsden, Pat
1936 births
2006 deaths
Canadian television sportscasters
Canadian sports talk radio hosts
Deaths from lung cancer
People from Ottawa
People from Toronto
Canadian Football League announcers
Deaths from cancer in Ontario
Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductees