Dorothy (Dot) Rose played for Canadian championship teams in two sports, curling and softball. Born in Carman, she got her start in both sports in Sperling. At age 11, she began to curl at the local two-sheet natural ice rink, and she and her sister Margaret soon curled in country bonspiels on a team skipped by their mother Esther. She started playing softball at age 12 with a local girls’ team, and played there through high school.

After she moved to Winnipeg, Rose joined CUAC Blues of the Greater Winnipeg Senior Girls’ Softball League. Her career with the Blues lasted 18 years and, except for her rookie season of 1956, the team won the league and provincial championships every year. Between 1956 and 1966, when league all-star teams were picked, Rose was selected to the first team as a pitcher eight times. She also won both a league MVP and an all-round player award. Her pitching ability proved to be an important component of the team when CUAC won the Western Canada title in 1957 and 1960 and the first Canadian senior women’s championship in 1965. Always a clutch hitter as well, she hit .667 to top the 1965 tournament in batting.

In the 1980s as a member of the Winnipeg Clubbers, she added provincial masters’ championships to her list of accomplishments. In 2002, Rose was inducted into the Manitoba Softball Hall of Fame as a member of the 1965 national championship team. The 1957-1962 CUAC teams were inducted in 2005, and Rose was honoured as an individual athlete in 2007.

In 1960, Rose and her CUAC teammates Joan Ingram and Laurie Bradawaski joined the newly-formed Fort Garry Business Girls curling club. That was the beginning of a curling combination that proved to be one of the best in Manitoba over the next four decades. In 1967, their Fort Garry team of skip Betty Duguid, third Ingram, second Bradawaski and lead Rose won the provincial women’s crown and followed up with a victory in the Canadian championship. Two years later, with Pat Brunsdon at the helm, the trio again won Manitoba. In 1973, with Rose now playing second, Bradawaski at third and Ingram skipping, their team won the province, but lost to Saskatchewan in the Canadian final.

Rose won her fourth women’s title in 1982 when she skipped a different group from the Deer Lodge Business Girls club to the first provincial Scott Tournament of Hearts championship. She moved to senior play in 1990, to play third on a Thistle Business Girls team skipped by Ingram that won the provincial title. Bradawaski joined the team at second for two more senior championships in 1992 and 1993. The 1967 Canadian championship team entered the Manitoba Curling Hall of Fame in 1992, and Rose was inducted as an individual curler in 1999. In 2000, a Thistle team with Rose at skip and Ingram at third won the first Diamond Ladies masters championship. That victory meant that for six consecutive decades Dot Rose played for a curling or softball team, and in some cases both, that won a provincial championship.