Learn how to play the French game of pétanque

There will be more than angling going on during Wheaton Park District's Fish-O-Rama Saturday, June 19, at Northside Park, 1300 N. West St., Wheaton. At the rectangle of red gravel on the park's south side, DuPage Pétanque will teach participants the sport of pétanque from 8 to 11 a.m.

"We'll demonstrate the game, teach the game, and then organize a few simple games," said Dan Danielson of DuPage Pétanque, a local enthusiast club for the most popular sport in Europe after soccer.

Pétanque is slowly gaining footholds in the Midwest, California and Florida. The game doesn't have a steep learning curve, but it does have a long history.

"It's a pretty simple game," Danielson said. "The history of it goes way back to ancient Rome, when Roman soldiers tossed rocks around to kill time. It evolved over time into many different forms of rolling a ball toward a target ball," including bocce ball in Italy, lawn bowling in England, and modern bowling in America.

Pétanque means "feet together" in French, and games consist of two teams of one, two or three players trying to throw their boulles, or balls, closest to the cochonnet, or target ball.

The first team draws a circle from which each player must stand and play, throws the cochonnet in any direction between 20 and 33 feet away, and tosses their boulles as close to it as possible. The second team knocks away the first team's boulles, tries to get theirs closer than the first team, or both until the teams are out of boulles.

"There are pointers who try to get their boulle close to the target ball, and then there are shooters who try to shoot the other team's balls away," Danielson said. "It's similar to bocce ball, but it's a lot more dynamic. There's more lobbing the boulles into the air and shooting the boulles directly."

At the end of the round, the team with the boulle closest to the cochonnet gets a point for every boulle closer than the other team's boulles, and the first team to 13 points wins.

Danielson appreciates the game's mix of accessibility and social engagement.

"What's fun about pétanque is that it can be played at many different levels, from a very casual backyard game to very competitive," he said. "On a casual, social level you can have a young child play the game, and they can be a teammate to a senior in their 70s or 80s. There aren't many sports where you can have men and women and children and adults playing the same game at the same time."

DuPage Pétanque, a branch of Chicago Pétanque Club, has steadily grown to 35 regular members since Danielson founded it.

"My wife and I went to France and on a tour in Provence, one day our guide said, 'After dinner, I'll teach you this game called pétanque.' He showed us the game and we had a fun time. A lot of laughs, easy to learn. I came back home and wondered if anybody else knew about the game in this country," Danielson said.

Some did.

"I created a website and asked if anybody in the Chicago area knew of the game," he said. "I got a response from several people saying they grew up in Poland or Belgium and we said, well, let's get together, and we started playing. People just walking by would stop and I'd hand them a boulle and invite them to play and one thing led to another."

One member has even participated in international tournaments.

"He's been on the pétanque team that represents the United States in France," Danielson said. "There are so many really, really good pétanque players in the world, especially Europe, and it's getting big in Thailand and Morocco now, wherever there was a French influence."

Much like PGA golfers or NBA players, professional pétanque players worldwide gather sponsors and make careers of playing it.

DuPage Pétanque members may not make careers out of the game, but they do make friends.

"It's a very social game," Danielson said. "You have potluck picnics and people bring a dish or a snack. That's the way it's played in France, in the town square."

DuPage Pétanque meets three times a week: 9 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at Memorial Park, 208 W. Union Ave., Wheaton, and at noon Sundays at Northside Park.

To learn about pétanque, DuPage Pétanque, and Chicago Pétanque Club, visit chicagopetanque.com. Those interested in becoming members of DuPage Pétanque or Chicago Pétanque Club may contact Dan Danielson at dan@chicagopetanque.com.

If you go

What: Demonstrations of the game of pétanque during Fish-O-Rama

When: 8 to 11 a.m. Saturday, June 19

Where: Northside Park, 1300 N. West St., Wheaton

Info: dan@chicagopetanque.com