Our corner of southeastern Manitoba is going to be very well-represented this winter at Canada’s national curling finals, on both the men’s and women’s sides. Niverville’s own Ty Dilello will be making his very first appearance at the Brier, skipping a team out of Newfoundland and Labrador, while Kate Cameron of Grande Pointe will be skipping Team Manitoba at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
Ty Dilello
For the past three seasons, Dilello played third for Team Ryan Wiebe out of the Fort Rouge Curling Club in Winnipeg. That team had tremendous success and competed at a very high level.
“We were ranked top ten in Canada and got to play in some of the world’s biggest tour events, including Grand Slams and the Pointsbet Invitational, but we never advanced to the Brier,” he says. “In Manitoba, we had to get by teams like McEwen, Dunstone, and Carruthers every year. We went deep at each of those three provincials but were never able to win.”
The Wiebe team disbanded at the end of last season, giving Dilello the chance to consider his next career move. Having fought in the trenches for years in Manitoba, he turned his eye to opportunities in other provinces where the road to the Brier isn’t quite as narrow.
He found exactly what he was looking for in Newfoundland, where a team of talented young players—Ryan McNeil Lamswood, Daniel Bruce, and Aaron Feltham—were in search of a skip to take them to the next level.
“Two of them had been to a Canadian junior final before and the group had lost the Newfoundland provincial men’s semifinal the past few years,” Dilello says. “I joined the team to be the skip and hopefully lead us all to the Brier for the first time.”
They met up for a bonspiel in late October in Halifax. From the very start, the chemistry was apparent and they made a run to the playoffs.
Dilello then travelled to St. Catharines, Ontario to represent Team Manitoba at the Canadian Mixed Championships. He had won mixed provincials the previous spring. In St. Catharines, he finished in fourth place.
“After that, I just practiced on my own back in Winnipeg while my teammates practiced together whenever they got the chance.”
Dilello spent the Christmas break in Italy and only returned home to Niverville a few days before he needed to jump back on a plane and head to Newfoundland for their provincials.
“So I practiced a few times and spared in the Manitoba Open for a few days,” he says. “Then it was right back on a plane to St. John’s. It’s a miracle I was able to play so well after taking a break from the ice for a while!”
The Newfoundland provincials was a 12-team triple knockout event. Dilello’s team ended up going 9–1 through the week to win the championship.
“The final had us basically in a best-of-five series with last year’s champ, Andrew Symonds, who was a very good team on their home ice club. All three games went down to the final rock, and each had their own set of challenges that we were able to overcome.”
In the first game, tied with hammer in the final end, Dilello made a nice draw to the button to win the game.
In the second, they were down early and had to fight their way back to tie the score heading into the last end, where they were able to pull out the victory.
“In the third game, my team was really feeling the nerves of being so close to their first Brier,” Dilello says. “They struggled out of the gate and we trailed the entire game.”
But in the eighth end, Dilello made a long angle runback to score one and chip away at the Symonds’ lead, getting it down to 5–3.
“In the ninth end, we stole two to tie the game after I made a thin double and they missed a hit through a port. And then in the tenth end, we had some good placement of our stones and we were able to steal the winning point after they missed a very difficult tap back on their last rock.”
The crowd of 500 erupted in pure pandemonium, Dilello says, after the final.
“That night, I got ‘screeched in,’ which made me an honorary Newfoundlander,” he recalls. “You’ll have to look that one up if you don’t know what it means!”
Now the countdown is on to the Brier, which will take place February 28–March 9 at Prospera Place in Kelowna, British Columbia.
“After getting so close on a number of occasions, you wonder if you’ll ever get there,” says Dilello. “So for it to happen like this with this group of guys, it’s definitely very special and we’re going to take in the whole Brier experience. We can’t wait!”
Kate Cameron
Cameron has been curling at the elite level for more than a decade, mixing it up with the very best teams in the world. She made her first appearance at the Manitoba provincials in 2013, which soon became an annual tradition.
Four years later, she joined a rink skipped by Michelle Englot. That team tore through the competition at provincials, defeating perennial favourite Jennifer Jones and going on to represent Manitoba at the national Scotties.
Although Englot’s team settled for silver that year, falling to Rachel Homan in the final, Cameron and the rest of Team Englot found themselves back at the Scotties the following year, this time wearing the maple leaf when Homan’s team was unable to appear due to their preparations to represent Canada at the 2018 Olympics.
Cameron soon joined Team Laura Walker out of Alberta, playing third. They stampeded to three straight Alberta titles and represented at the Scotties in 2020, 2021, and 2022. The team won bronze in 2021.
In 2023, Cameron was back at the Scotties, this time playing third for Casey Scheidegger, again out of Alberta.
The following season, Cameron came home to skip a new team in Manitoba. Although they didn’t win provincials, they accumulated enough points in season play to qualify them to appear at the 2024 Scotties as a wild card team.
But this year was a different story. Alongside third Taylor McDonald, second Brianna Cullen, and lead Mackenzie Elias, Cameron is heading to the Scotties for the first time skipping her home province of Manitoba—and she says it’s an incredible honour.
“In the preliminary round, we had a round robin of five and finished 3–2,” Cameron says. “Those losses were unexpected to us and we really didn’t think that we would maybe find ourselves with our backs against the wall going into the championship round.”
She says their opponents were shooting really well that week. In a game against Lisa McLeod, Cameron says that her team had full control and somehow managed to let it slip away in the extra end.
But they made it into the championship round and knew they weren’t dead, even if the road ahead looked steep. They would need to win all three games of the championship round.
That’s exactly what they did, dispatching Darcy Robertson 8–6, Kristy Watling 7–5, and Beth Peterson 7–6.
“The way it all kind of worked out on the last day is that every team was still alive,” she says. “It was a little bit crazy and there were so many scenarios that could happen with the playoff picture. I think it was great that our team was just able to control what we could control.”
When the playoff dust settled, Cameron’s team found themselves with a berth straight to the final, earning them a bit of a break.
“I think the rest we got between Saturday and Sunday was much needed, and much deserved, after a hard-fought championship round,” Cameron says. “I think that helped us bring a better game in the final.”
In the final, Cameron faced off against Beth Peterson for the right to represent Manitoba at the nationals. It was a tight game from start to finish. The teams traded singles for the first three ends before Cameron stole one in the fourth.
The lead was short-lived, however, with Peterson storming back with three points in the fifth.
Cameron stole again in the eighth end, this time taking two points, and went into the final end tied with hammer. Having given herself control, she made her final shot to walk away with arguably the biggest win of her career.
“Wearing the buffalo is always exciting,” she says. “You know, I’ve only won one other Manitoba provincials and it’s crazy to think it was my first and that was so long ago. I think it was about nine years ago… If you would have told me ten years ago I’d even win one, I would say ‘You’re crazy.’ The strength of the field here in Manitoba is just top-notch and always has been.”
In addition to her own excitement to be back at the Scotties, this time skipping out of Manitoba, she says she’s equally excited to be going there with her lead Mackenzie Elias and second Brianna Cullen, who will be experiencing the event for the first time.
“It’s such a special event and I’m so glad those girls get to keep building their own careers.”
