His iconic greeting, “This is Steady Eddie Dearden teeing it up for ’OB Sports,” lingers in the local golf world decades later.
“Every sports fan in our listening area came to know that signoff,” recalled former CJOB sports director Bob (Knuckles) Irving, who worked alongside Eddie Dearden for years.
“He was a wonderful guy, a true gentleman and a kind human being who loved his work.”
Dearden, who died on March 29 at the age of 96, had started working at the CPR just out of high school after his parents died and freelanced at the Winnipeg Tribune. Sports editor Jack (Matty) Matheson eventually hired him full-time and promoted him to assistant sports editor.
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Here interviewing famed hockey player Anders Hedberg (left), Ed Dearden covered the WHA Winnipeg Jets for the Tribune and provided Jets colour commentary on CJOB broadcasts.
“You know that Matty called him Steady Eddie because he was such a steady type of person,” said Kent Morgan, who sat on the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame board when Dearden was inducted into it.
“Eddie earned his Steady Eddie moniker well because he was even-keeled and unflappable,” said former Tribune copy editor/reporter Dave Komosky, recalling the time Dearden’s golf column blew out the window before it could be sent to print.
“There went Eddie’s copy, fluttering down to the roof of the Trib garage below, with no way to retrieve (it),” he said. “We called Eddie at home with the bad news (late in the evening) and he had to drive all the way from Fort Richmond to redo his column.
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At the old Winnipeg Tribune, Ed Dearden did not complain when his typed column blew out the window, requiring him to drive back to work for a complete rewrite.
“Most guys would be mad. Not Eddie. He came in, saw the sheets on the roof, sat down at his desk and calmly retyped his column. On leaving, all he said was: ‘Next time, be careful.’”
Neither of his two children, Cathy and Craig, could recall their father ever getting angry.
“I remember once, he got a little frustrated when we were packing the car to go on a camping trip but, other than that, he was a pretty cool guy,” said Cathy Dearden. “Even right up to the end, everyone commented on what a gentleman he was.”
Dearden was also inducted into the Manitoba basketball and golf halls of fame, as well as into the Manitoba Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association (MSSA) Media Roll of Honour. In 1992, Dearden received the commemorative medal for the 125th anniversary of the confederation of Canada for his contributions to the community.
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Ed Dearden (left) interviewing Bobby “the Golden Jet” Hull during his time on the Jets in the mid 1970s.
The classy gentleman covered the WHA Winnipeg Jets for the Tribune and provided Jets colour commentary on CJOB broadcasts alongside Ken (Friar) Nicolson. He also covered golf for both the Trib and CJOB, and all levels of basketball. After the Trib folded, Dearden became the media co-ordinator for the sports branch of the provincial government, retiring in 1990.
“He is one of only three media people who have been inducted into our Manitoba Basketball Hall of Fame,” said the hall’s Ross Wedlake. “Jack Matheson was the first, then Ed Dearden, then Ron Meyers.”
In fact, Dearden was one of five people who originated the hall, Wedlake said.
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Ed Dearden, 14, in Grade 9.
“He loved what he did,” said Craig Deardon, who became a champion golfer, from Fairmont, B.C. “He’d do his field work during the day, then he’d go into the office at night and he’d be there to well past midnight. But, in the wintertime, if we had a hockey game at 7 a.m., he was up and ready to go, driving kids and coaching kids.”
“He was a great dad who was able to be home so much, which was really unique at that time,” Cathy said. “He seemed like a stay-at-home dad to us because he was usually home for breakfast, lunch and dinner most days and still had a full-time job. He would leave after an early dinner to ‘put the paper to bed.’
“He would often type his stories at home at the dining room table on his (typewriter) using his two index fingers. He did not have a typing course and that’s how he hammered out his stories.”
Craig recalled the time his father travelled with the Jets to Russia to cover a series there. He typed up his stories, then had to take a taxi to the telegram office to have them wired back to Winnipeg. One time, he made the mistake of paying the cab driver for the return fare to his hotel when arriving at the telegram office.
“When he came out, the taxi was gone,” Craig said. “My dad had no cellphone, no cash left on him and didn’t speak Russian. I think he recognized in the sky somewhere the top of the hotel he was at, so he had to walk back to the hotel from the telegraph office, carrying this heavy typewriter.”
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Ed Dearden and his wife, Lois, at their 40th anniversary in 1990.
Dearden did have some quirks.
“The funny stories, for me, were his fussy food preferences,” Cathy said. “He was a real meat-and-potatoes guy … He didn’t eat pizza or Chinese food until he was in his senior years.”
“He was very meticulous in his dress and his hygiene, and he always shaved with an electric razor,” said Craig, who recalled the time they tented at Clear Lake. “My dad would go from the campground to the bandstand in the park across from the main beach area because there was an electrical outlet there. He used to get up in the morning and go to the bandstand and shave.”
His father was also a do-it-yourself kind of guy.
“I loved helping him in the yard,” Craig said. “He taught me a lot of things. He developed his own basements, he built his own fences, he sodded his own places. That side of me, which I still enjoy today, was a good memory from him.”
Cathy enjoyed that side of him, too.
“We always watched Hockey Night in Canada in the rec room that he built, and he taught us to skate in the backyard in the skating rink that he built,” said Cathy, who enjoyed swimming with her dad. “Besides his family, he just loved, loved having his house and taking care of the lawn and the garden, and building his white picket fence, and meticulously hanging the pictures, and shovelling his own snow, and washing his own car until he was about 90 or 91, when he gave up driving.”
But Eddie was devastated when lost his loving wife, Lois.
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Ed Dearden, 95, playing a round of pool two winters ago, always kept active, delighting in attending grandchildren’s sports games.
“He was so devoted to my mother,” Cathy said. “They were together since they were 15 years old and when she passed away six years ago, his heart was broken. So, for the last six years, he and I spent lot of time together. I consider it a blessing that we had that beautiful time together.”
Competitive golfer Mike Gottfred appreciated the way Dearden covered the sport.
“All I can think about him is what a genuinely good guy he was and how he cared about how everybody did,” Gottfred said. “If you played well, he’d be happy for you. If you played poorly, he would commiserate with you and genuinely feel bad for you.”
Former Tribune colleague Glen Dawkins has fond memories of Dearden.
“Steady Eddie was always a consummate gentleman in a business that doesn’t always lend itself to that,” said Dawkins, now a Winnipeg Sun reporter. “I worked with him for years with the (MSSA) and he was always ready with a smile or a laugh, no matter what.”
Former Sun reporter Judy Fostey Owen, now with The Canadian Press, shares that sentiment.
“I always remember how kind Eddie was to me when I started as a sports reporter, and a rare female one to boot,” she said. “He didn’t have any ego and treated me like everyone else, often asking how work was going and offering any help if I needed it.
“I thought of him as a true gentleman. Maybe that’s why he was the person who always said grace and gave a toast to the queen at our Athlete of the Year Dinners. He had a quiet, respectful demeanour and you couldn’t help but feel good around him. He sure left a positive mark on the local sports community.”
Dearden also made a positive mark on family.
“He loved being a grandfather and he loved going to the kids’ hockey games,” Cathy said. “And he was very proud that he lived that long.”
Eddie is also survived by Cathy’s husband, Howie Blatt, and Craig’s wife, Cathy Boase, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.