Pat Marsden

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Patrick Frank 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 sports telecasts.

Marsden was born in Ottawa and attended St. Patrick's High School (Ottawa), where started his sportscasting career at and later 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 (filmed at CFTO), in a Super Dave Osborne stunt at Toronto's CN Tower.

Fired in 1985 after a physical altercation with his boss Ted Steubing (he threw Steubing over a desk), Marsden then was hired by his CTV football broadcasting partner Bill Stephenson at CFRB-AM, went to TSN, and later surfaced at the FAN 590 radio station. Fired again in 2004 (Marsden suggested it was due to a racial slur, the station indicated a need for change), Marsden left broadcasting for good.

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 2003 to live in Toronto and died of lung cancer on April 27, 2006, aged 69, at Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre.

He is survived by his wife Teri-Ann (and ex-wife Barbara) and five children (Taylor, Connor, Mike, Patti-Lee, and Ruth Mary) by both of his marriages.

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