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It’s possible without Scott Moore, the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling wouldn’t even exist today or at least wouldn’t have reached the heights it has under Sportsnet’s ownership.

Moore, President of Sportsnet & NHL Properties, announced Tuesday he will be leaving his post at the end of October after eight years.

When the future of the Grand Slam of Curling looked dim in 2012, it was Sportsnet, with Moore at the helm, who purchased the series and things have never been brighter.

We discussed here recently how the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling consisted of four men’s events and one women’s event prior to the acquisition and has grown exponentially in recent years to seven men’s and seven women’s events (really eight since the Tour Challenge is double-sized). Parity was reached this season following the addition of a women’s division to the Princess Auto Elite 10. Gender equality is quite rare in sports, even rarer in team sports, and yet here we are with purses and coverage level.

While we credited Sportsnet as a whole, kudos should really go to Moore, who believed in the series and has supported it since day one. His vision from the start has been to see curling become a truly professional sport with full-time athletes. We’re not there quite yet, but we’re closer than ever.

The players cashed in big with prize money increasing, however, fans have benefited greatly too. More events meant more opportunities to see the action live. Broadcast coverage of the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling also grew under Moore’s watch to four days of coverage for every event (and fans continue to clamour for more, understandably).

We could end our story there, but Moore is also a big believer in one other thing: digital content.

Before the purchase, curling stories on sportsnet.ca, which were few and far between and 99.9 percent wire copy anyway, were all lumped under the generic “more sports” section buried between stories about figure skating, swimming, etc. When Sportsnet acquired the Grand Slam of Curling on Aug. 30, 2012, a wild curling vertical suddenly appeared on our website.

This led a then 20-something sportsnet.ca intern, who had no idea the Grand Slam of Curling even existed previously, to sarcastically think, “Gee, I wonder who we’ll get to write for that?” It didn’t even cross that young intern’s mind at the time he would be the one assigned to that task and it would totally change his career trajectory.

(Yes, we’re talking about me here.)

My first week as an occasional curling writer for sportsnet.ca, writing recaps off of the broadcast, started in January 2013 and man, was it a doozy with not only the National (Team Stoughton routed Team McEwen in the final) but also women’s provincial playdowns on the network. I was thrown into the deep end. All those stories can still be found via Google searches but trust me, you don’t want to go down that rabbit hole.

After moving up to associate digital content editor status — and still writing recaps whenever a Grand Slam rolled along — I was loaned to the Grand Slam of Curling for their last two events of the 2013-14 season, the National and Players’ Championship, to help manage web content and social media for them as well. Apparently, I did a heck of a job although the stories wrote themselves. The Players’ Championship, which was the first one I covered in person, happened to be Kevin Martin’s swan song winning his record-extending 18th Grand Slam and the final event for a lot of teams that were revamping their rosters for the next Olympic cycle. That may have helped boost the numbers just a little bit.

I returned to sportsnet.ca after that stint not thinking much about it — the GSOC season was over, it was onto writing stories like the Harlem Globetrotters drafting Johnny Manziel or that time Roy Halladay took a blogger on a trip to a zoo — until my bosses met with the Big Boss. Although I wasn’t present, it was relayed to me that extremely positive website page view numbers were shown to Moore leading him to say something along the lines of: “Who is this guy? Hire him!”

The start of this season marked four years since I was handed the reins of this lovely little website full-time writing recaps, blogs and features not only for Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling events but throughout the seemingly never-ending curling season including appearances on the World Curling Tour, Scotties Tournament of Hearts and Olympic Trials. I’ve travelled across this wonderful country coast-to-coast, literally, as the 2015-16 season alone took me from Paradise, N.L., all the way to Victoria with several stops in-between (hello, Yorkton, Sask., and Truro, N.S.) I’ve written tons of stories I’m proud of, met tons of incredible people, made lots of great friends and interviewed Brad Gushue more times than I can count.

This is not only a thank you to Moore from the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling but also from this writer in particular. I’ll miss having you walk by my desk at Sportsnet HQ and ask, “Brazeau! What are you working on today?” all the while brandishing a cricket or baseball bat.

Thanks, Big Boss.