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

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, and later surfaced at

The Fan 590 CJCL (590 AM broadcasting, AM, ''Sportsnet Radio, Sportsnet 590 The Fan'') is a Canadian sports radio radio station, station in Toronto, Toronto, Ontario. Owned and operated by Rogers Sports & Media since 2002, CJCL's studios are located at the ...

. 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 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 on April 27, 2006, aged 69, at

Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (SHSC), commonly known as Sunnybrook Hospital or simply Sunnybrook, is an academic health science centre located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest trauma centre in Canada and one of two trauma centr ...

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