Just three months had passed since the Canucks had suffered a heartbreaking Game 7 defeat in the Stanley Cup Final when Jack Keating of Province Sports covered the team’s first preseason news conference in September of 1994.
Keating entered the room with a brick-sized tape recorder, set it down amid the small recorders on the table, and took a seat with a knife protruding from his sports coat’s left breast pocket.
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Arthur Griffiths, the owner of the Canucks, shot a concerned sidelong glance back at the late Pat Quinn, the team’s coach and general manager, who raised his eyebrows.
On my first day on the Canucks beat with Keating, there was a loud click halfway through the meeting. He took the knife out of his pocket, used the blade to jimmie the cassette out of the machine, flipped the cassette over, and then sat back, oblivious to the sudden silence around the table as all eyes were on him.
You see, the tape machine’s eject button wasn’t working properly.
Former Province Sports coworker David Banks said of Jack, “I loved his lack of pretense and obvious love of what he was doing.”
Keating, 74, passed away quietly while sleeping on Christmas Eve or early on December 26, just hours before his yearly Boxing Night celebration was scheduled to begin. His 35-year partner Kathy Markovic said that he had a beatific expression on his face and his left hand resting on his breast.
Keating was born in 1949 and was born on March 31, the same day as Pavel Bure and Gordie Howe.
Growing up, he resided at 23rd and Rupert, and his only other residence was in East Van, where as a child, he would deliver fish and chips while attaching a transistor radio to his bike’s handlebars.
He cherished visiting New York. He liked to boast, “I’ve been there more times than I’ve been to North Vancouver,” and he would frequently travel to San Francisco to watch his favorite baseball team, the Giants. He particularly enjoyed visiting Cuba. Keating most likely traveled there thirty or more times.
Colin, his son, said, “He came to all my kids’ baseball and hockey games; he wouldn’t miss a game.” “He was there at all times.”
This previous Christmas Day, the family was having a normal dinner, and Keating was giving everyone presents. But he went to lie down since he was fatigued. He’d been throwing Boxing Day parties for almost forty years, and he had a lot to prepare for the guests who would be coming by five o’clock that evening.
Colin remarked, “We left Christmas night expecting to see him Boxing Day—that was his day.” “He told me to bring my speaker, to make sure the kids came, and he would be cooking, as he usually does, a big roast.”
Keating was referred to as JFK with respect, not because Fitzgerald was his middle name but rather because he preferred to use F-bombs as an exclamation point, adverb, and adjective. Neal Hall, a former reporter for the Vancouver Sun and friend of Keating’s, remarked, “He loved to swear, part of his East Van roots.”
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A permanent fixture at the now-closed Revel Room in Gastown, the chair he regularly used had a plaque that said “JFK’s Seat” on it.
Keating covered a wide range of sports, but writing about the Vancouver 86ers/Whitecaps was where his enthusiasm really took off.
Canadian soccer legend Bob Lenarduzzi remarked of Jack, “He was definitely different.” “He was direct in both his questions and the answers he received.”
At times, the two would argue verbally, but “you couldn’t get mad at him because that was just Jack as far as Jack went.”
Keating never had a microwave or a cell phone. Using a digital camera that his daughter Shannon had given him, he would snap pictures and then take them to the pharmacy to have them printed. He proudly displayed the printed images he had carried in a slim briefcase.
Before he left The Province to promote punk-rock shows 12 years ago, his desk at work resembled a jet engine that had blown over a newsstand: He was aware of the location of every item, including a mound of worn-out notebooks over sheafs of looseleaf atop newspapers that were months old.
The desk was more packed than Jack, filled with old newspapers, story printouts, and transcripts of speeches made by Fidel Castro. Additionally, his shirt pockets were always stuffed with a notepad and many pens, according to Dana Gee, a Vancouver Sun arts writer who met Keating on her first day of work as a Province Sports reporter in 1990.
“I realized right away that he was unique,” Gee remarked. “One of the great jewels of journalism, and a guy you could call once and he would save your ass.”
Former sportswriter for the Vancouver Sun Mike Beamish started covering the same teams as Keating in the early 1980s, first junior hockey and lacrosse, then the Canucks.
Beamish stated, “The four pillars of Jack Keating: Eccentric, profane, endearing, and lovable.”
It was Jeff and Mutt.
We made an odd couple. I suppose the fact that I was so straight made Jack laugh. Many things that Jack took for granted needed to be talked into.
The phone in Beamish’s hotel room rang at one in the morning one night following a hockey game at Madison Square Garden. Keating was phoning from a well-known bar in New York City.
“I’m at the Columbus Cafe, and you need to come down here,” he added. I’m conversing with the Eurythmics’ drummer.
Beamish, against his better judgment, got ready and went downstairs. Robin Williams, Jackie Mason, and Robert Duvall were seated at an adjacent table.
Beamish remarked, “It’s early hours of the morning now, and Robin Williams gets up and starts riffing.” He was essentially doing a stand-up comedy event without charging a cover.
“I realized that I wouldn’t be here doing and witnessing these kinds of things if it weren’t for Jack.”
There won’t be any more stories like the ones that so many folks have. That’s official, as Keating would say.
Jack Keating’s mother Norma passed away in 2002, while his father Grant passed away in 1965. His son Colin (Jessica Winters), daughter Shannon, grandchildren Kieran, Leda, and Caprice, brother Mike (Carol), nephews Kevin and John, and his lifelong companion Kathy Markovic survive him.