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In the spring of '82 a young man named Paul Zirk left his job at a Large sports retail outlet to eliminate the possibility of moving to - oof - Toronto.
As the summer progressed he concluded that finding another job wasn't his idea of a good time.
Start a business, make a ton of money, retire early and party like crazy - That was a plan !
The Destination was originally founded as Destination Ski Rentals Ltd. A place where you could go to get ski gear for any mountain so you could cut out the lineups. Fortunately at that time the lovely Colleen worked at The Keg for real cash (a waiter named Kieth provided us with the first artwork on a napkin), which was a good thing, as Paul went immediately into debt.
The idea of providing services with the rentals - things like personal boot fitting and waxed skis was revolutionary. So was the concept of taking home a set of gear for your kids that you could size exchange whenever you wanted, with no new costs.
No more garage sales or hard to deal with "trade-ins". No more panic when a kid grew out of something in February and no store had anything or no garage full of stuff that nobody really wanted to wear anyway. People liked this, so business grew.
We started selling new things in 1985, and true to our revolutionary mindset, we chose to specialize in things other areas, like custom boot fitting and family programs and services that you just could get anywhere else. "Big box" may have been in vogue but we didn't like it.
Also, as much fun as it was being closed all summer, it was also costly and made it difficult to keep good staff. Waterskis - Wakeboards - Skim boards and all the shorts, shirts and swimwear that goes with it became our summer work.
Neat how we chose stuff that requires fun to be had as our vocation, isn't it...
So after 20 years we're still here and the party's still on. So give us a call, or better yet, pay us a visit. There's enough fun to go around for everyone!
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