I placed the small black wheel in my hand and started to lunge forward with my left leg to let it go. But Rick Mischke stopped me and gave me some friendly advice.

“Place three fingers underneath,” he said. He reminded me that the surface of the wheel sloped to one side.

My left leg then powered forward again, and I swung that wheel forward like I was on a bowling alley. The wheel wobbled as soon as I left my hand. It slowly moved toward the stake at the other end.

My first attempt at playing Rolle Bolle wasn’t pretty. The wheel plopped several feet in front of the stake.

My second attempt wasn’t much better. The wheel wobbled again, but this time it shot right past the stake.

There was nothing wrong about Mischke’s training technique. He knew what he was talking about.

The Walnut Grove resident is a champion Rolle Bolle player.

“I’ve been second in the world,” he said. “Won International. I won Iowa State, Minnesota State, Illinois State.”

I met Mischke and a bunch of other players on the Rolle Bolle lanes between city hall and the post office in Ghent. As it turns out, Ghent is like the Lambeau Field of rolle bolle. Way back when, some Belgian immigrants brought the game to this southwestern Minnesota town and it never left.

Forget about Thursday Night Football. In Ghent, happy hour starts at KB Bar and Grill across the street. But after dinner and a couple drinks, it’s Rolle Bolle time.

On average, the Rolle Bolle is a 6-8 inch diameter by 2 1/2 inch thick, solid, hard rubber wheel that looks like “a giant hockey puck.”

Rolle Bolle is sort of a cross between curling and horseshoes, according to Chauncey Welvaert. He’s says he’s 100 percent Belgian and one of the few people in the world who make the Rolle Bolles.

“I grew up in it, I guess. Playing up on the farm and in tournaments” Welvaert said. He has always lived in the Ghent area.

“The guy who used to make them here had past. So I talked to his son and I asked him about keeping it going. I bought the equipment from him and started to making them,” he said.

“How hard was it to learn to make them?” I asked.

“It was hard. I had to start from fresh. Obviously, you don’t know when somebody is going to pass. I would have liked to learn the tricks of the trade from him when he was alive yet. So it was kind of a trial and error type of deal and go from there,” Welvaert said.

Two years later, he’s still working on his new trade.

“I don’t know if I perfected it yet. I’m still learning. But I have a good idea of it now,” he said.

Welvaert claims he’s not it for the money. The average cost for Rolle Bolle is $70, but he says that barely covers his cost.

‘It’s not a money-making deal. It’s mainly to keep the game going. I make a little bit, but it’s hardly worth my time.

That made me wonder where would one get a Rolle Bolle if Welvaert didn’t step in to make them.

“There’s a guy in Illinois, but he’s about done too,” he said. “He’s 65, 66 (years old) and just had open-heart surgery. So he’s kind of tired of making them too.”

Welvaert says he sells a lot of Rolle Bolles in Canada. And now he’s getting orders from Arizona from retirees who moved away from the cold winters of the Midwest.

Welvaert takes his Belgian heritage seriously. He even traveled to Belgium and played the game there.

“It’s way different there,” he said. “Here we have a little bit of more turning in bolles. Over there it’s pretty much straight and they play on sand.”

I also found out Welvaert also is the organizer on Thursday night. Using a deck of cards, he divides everybody into teams.

“We have a pretty tight-knit group. I would say a Rolle Bolle family. Where everybody know s each other. Everybody are friends. Like when we have tournaments, it’s just kind of a big party, a get together, almost like a family reunion,” he said.

Leroy St. Aubin is one of those family members.

“I kind of grew up with it,” he told me while he practiced before the games started.

“On the farm with my dad and stuff just south toward Marshall. We had other farmers in the area that would get together. I was 8, 10 years old when I started to pick it up.

“When you have family get-togethers, you just put a stake in the ground and play. Or you go to a picnic or something. Pound in a couple stakes and just play. In the summer, everybody carries a bolle with them.”

St. Aubin doesn’t have a Belgian heritage. He just enjoys the game.

“It’s simple, easy going. Not everybody gets tensed up. It’s just a game. We have a lot of fun. A lot of camaraderie.”

But then I watched St. Aubin get a little agitated as he waited for the games to begin.

“Come on people, are we gong to get a game going or not?” he asked to no one in particular.

Maybe Rolle Bolle is not intense, as St. Aubin suggests. But Belgian blood or not, once you put that Rolle Bolle in hand, it’s time to play.

But I’m gong to have work on my technique before I step on those lanes again on a Thursday night.