It figures, Howes Manitoba’s 2023 athlete of the year

Davey Howes held for one more applause on his breakout season.

The 17-year-old figure skater was celebrated as Sport Manitoba’s 2023 Athlete of the Year at the organization’s Night of Champions at the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame on Thursday.

The event honoured some of the highest achievements and contributions Manitobans made in sport last year.

Honoured alongside Howes was Gabrielle Wishart (Coach of the Year) and Greg Dzioba (Official of the Year). Also recognized (but not in attendance) were Kerri Einarson’s curling squad from Gimli, which won Team of the Year and Resby Coutts, who won Volunteer of the Year for her time in curling.

Howes skated to national acclaim in 2023, a year he jumped to the junior level after dominating the novice competition.

“It was definitely a breakout year,” Howes said. “I think I was able to put my name on the map, not just in Canada but also a bit internationally.

“It felt like a very momentous year. I started off with a lot of momentum and I was able to continue with that.”

Howes won the men’s novice at the Skate Canada Challenge in January and encored with a gold medal at the Canadian novice men’s championship in February, after which he officially turned to the junior level and was named one of 10 junior men selected to represent Canada on the Junior Grand Prix in Budapest.

Howes, who is the highest ranked nationally of all first-year junior men, later made his international debut at the Coupe de Printemps in Luxembourg where he placed fifth.

“It was a very important year for my career,” said Howes, who saw success in 2022 but was preparing for a breakout in 2023.

“Everything just kind of clicked. I was able to start off the year in novice and I moved up to junior and I was competing against all these other men in Canada who had been there for two or three years or had national medals, so I was just able to gain a lot more experience competing against these experienced competitors.”

Team Einarson was named Team of the Year for the second year in a row after winning a record-tying fourth straight Scotties and earning a bronze medal at the women’s world championship in Sweden. Einarson, third Val Sweeting and second Shannon Birchard received first-team all-star nods at the Scotties, while lead Briane Harris was named a second-team all-star.

Coutts, who has been involved in curling since 1969, played his usual rover role in the sport last year. Among other things, the Melita resident was a livestream commentator for several championships, emcee of the opening ceremonies at the Manitoba Open Bonspiel, a drawmaster for Fort Rouge, and acted as a ceremonies advisor to several committees for curling events across the province.

Wishart’s nod as Coach of the Year comes for leading Team Manitoba’s U16 men’s volleyball team to gold at the North American Indigenous Games in Halifax last summer.

Wishart, who had worked in an assistant coaching role in past years, was promoted to head coach just four months before the NAIG and still led the Manitoban squad to an international championship on the strength of a perfect 8-0 record.

The Manitobans dropped one set in eight contests.

“Historically, Manitoba’s male teams haven’t been very strong. It’s usually the western provinces that do really well, but I wanted to change it so I focused a lot on recruiting,” said Wishart, who has also coached the U14 men’s team at 204 Volleyball for the last eight years.

“They were so dedicated. They called it a business trip, they were there to win.”

Wishart, who is Métis, is a member of the Volleyball Manitoba Board of Directors and an advocate for representation and inclusion in the sport. In her eyes, she is far from finished making an impact.

“I’d like to see more recognition of Indigenous athletes. Historically, people don’t openly express that they’re Indigenous,” she said. “My goal is that Indigenous athletes in sports are seen s high-performance, because a lot of it is seen as grassroots — and there is grassroots, and it’s super important that we have it — but there needs to be more room for high performance.”

Dzioba said he figured it was “better to be a good (table tennis) official than a sh—ty player.”

The Polish-born umpire immigrated to Winnipeg in 1988 and quickly worked his way up the officiating ranks. Last year, Dzioba accomplished a rare feat in becoming one of 20 people in the world, and the only person in North America, to receive gold badge umpire status from the International Table Tennis Federation.

As a blue badge umpire, Dzioba travelled the world to officiate tournaments, including the Paralympics in Athens, London and Tokyo, and the Olympics in London. With his new status, he is eligible to referee all of the best events in the world.

“That gold badge is something that is not easy to get,” said Dzioba, who’s travel highlights last year included Bangkok, Colombia and China.

In addition to officiating at the highest level, Dzioba pays it forward locally by umpiring and coaching kids who are new to table tennis and training and mentoring new officials.

“As an official, you compete with officials from tennis, from hockey, from sports that are more visible than table tennis,” he said.

“So, for me to achieve this is a great honor, first of all. Secondly, it (provides) value to something that you do. It’s just validation of my career. I didn’t expect it, but it’s very nice.”

[email protected]

X: @jfreysam