Jake Pech, Grayslake's International Curling Star

Long before the team sport of curling became an international sensation during the televising of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, Jake Pech of Grayslake was sliding a granite stone down the ice or vigorously sweeping the ice in front of the stone to make it go faster.

Pech's story of his national and international adventures with the Chicago Curling Club of Northbrook is being told, along with stories of other Grayslake athletes in the sports exhibit "Leave Nothing On the Field" at the .

Pech was born in Feb. 28, 1901, in Rockefeller (now known as Mundelein). He was a bachelor and lived in Grayslake for more than 70 years. He died May 16, 1981, and is buried in Grayslake Cemetery on Lake Street. He worked at Western Electric Co. in Chicago for more than 40 years.

To many observers, curling has the elements of shuffleboard, bocce ball, bowling and horseshoes. Scoring, rules and required skills are similar. But in curling, players slide granite stones across a sheet of ice toward a target area. The purpose of the game is to get points for being the nearest to the target.

After the thrower, or curler, slides the stone, two sweepers with brooms try to alter the ice surface to change the direction or speed of the stone. Here's where teamwork and strategy plays an important role.

Sweeping is done for two reasons: to reduce friction underneath the stone, and to decrease the amount of curl. The stones curl more as they slow down, so sweeping early in travel tends to increase the distance as well as straighten the path, and sweeping after sideways motion is established can increase the sideways distance. Because of this, the nickname for the game is Chess On Ice.

As a member of the Northbrook curling club in 1962, Pech participated in an international curling tournament in Scotland, where the game is believed to have originated in the 1400s. There is some research suggesting the game first was played in Holland, where Dutch paintings show winter scenes with curling in the background. Curlers from Washington, Colorado, Minnesota, Michigan, New York, Illinois and Massachusetts also participated in the Scotland tournament.

Pech and 12 other curlers toured Sweden in 1965. Curlers came from Norway, Canada, Switzerland, England, Scotland and Holland. Besides his international and national tournaments, Pech and fellow Northbrook club members kept in shape with numerous games, sometimes as many as three a week. In his later years, he was a member of the Old Buzzards who curled one afternoon a week.

Pech is remembered by many walking around Grayslake with his tam, or beret, adorned with many colorful curling pins from competitions in Canada, Sweden and Scotland. One of his favorites was from Loch Ness, Scotland, featuring the famous monster Nessie.

He told The Grayslake Times in 1972 that curling is "like no other sport. Nothing can compare to the competitive spirit or the feeling of fraternity. It isn't a fuddy-duddy, old man's sport -- it's one of the oldest on record."

The Milwaukee Curling Club, headquartered in Mequon, is the oldest curling club in the country, founded in 1845. Illinois’ oldest curling club, established in 1884, is in Triumph in LaSalle County.

The popularity of the sport is continuing to grow with its inclusion in the Winter Olympic Games since 1998. It was an Olympics demonstration sport for some of the Olympic years, although the first medals for curling were awarded retroactively for the 1924 Olympics in Chamonix, France.

Perhaps the ultimate in the sports modern-day acceptance occurred in 2010 with the Boy Meets Curl episode of The Simpsons on television. Homer and Marge Simpson form a mixed-doubles curling team that qualifies for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

The sports display is open to the public in the  and Museum, 164 Hawley St., from noon to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and during downtown Grayslake community events including the Farmers' Market on Wednesday afternoons and evenings.

The Archives of the are open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursdays and by appointment. Call 847-223-7663.

- Contributed by the Grayslake Historical Society