Curling into retail

OTTAWA – Joe Pavia took the big step this summer.

The longtime local curling dynamo quit has job of some 18 years – at the city’s annual exhibition – and is the new owner of a curling supply shop in the Ottawa market... the Hogline Curlers Proshop.

And the new proprietor is... as you might expect, pumped but also nervous!

“It’s exciting but scary at the same time. Lots of debt and no steady paycheque... but it beats a real job,” Pavia laughed.

The shop is located within the legendary Ottawa Curling Club, occupying a whopping 400 feet of space.

“Wal-Mart sized,” Pavia joked. However, the joke has inspired a new tagline: Good things come in small packages!

The shop has a spiffy website, complete with a Games and Video page, in addition to a Blog.

Pavia knows all about curling writing. The longtime Ottawa columnist for Ontario Curling Report is also into his fourth year (or is it fifth year?) as a curling columnist for the Ottawa Sun.

Last fall Pavia accepted the Ontario Curling Association’s 2007-08 Media Award on behalf of the Sun, a photo of which was published in the print edition of The Curling News (have you subscribed yet?)

Today also marks the return of Pavia’s Sun column, which is located here.

And if all that is not enough, October will mark the beginning of new Joe adventure – a weekly curling radio show on Ottawa’s local CHIN Radio International station... where Pavia hopes to get the area’s ethnic community fired up about the sport.

Best of luck to a real Joe of curling!