

SPOKANE, Wash. -- It’s not hard to spot Team Kakela lead J.P. Munich sliding (photo by Rich Harmer/USA Curling) down the ice during the USA Curling National Championships.

Some players have a tuck delivery and/or use a corn broom to stand out. Munich is the one with a mitt in his mouth.

His play does all the talking on the ice leading the way so to speak shooting a team-high 88 percent during his team’s 7-6 victory over Scott Dunnam during Monday morning’s draw at Eastern Washington University’s Recreation Center in Cheney.

Munich has rolled with the “Mitten Munch” moniker that has garnered attention online from curious observers.

“Honestly, it’s kind of fun,” said Munich, sans mitten in his mouth. “It’s a playful area around here, everyone enjoys it. It’s more kind of a running joke at this point and something that I’ve done for a while, so it’s not going to go away anytime soon.”

It all started a couple of years ago in juniors when he was vice skip playing with Sam Strouse. Munich would take his mitt off to throw his rocks and then forget it when he slid down to the other end of the ice to hold the broom during Strouse’s skips stones.

“Once I bit it to take it off and I’m like, ‘I’m just going to leave it there,’” he explained. “I slid out with it in my mouth and it’s stayed there ever since.”

“It’s kind of like a lucky thing now,” Munich added. “It’s just part of the routine at this point, just muscle memory, so it’s there to stay.”

Strouse now plays third for Chase Sinnett and is also competing in the national championships this week. He said he doesn’t know how he feels about Munich’s mitt-munching habit.

“I mean, it works for him,” Strouse said. “I wasn’t super fond of it but I deal with it now.”

Of course, there are some obvious questions: Has it ever fallen out?

“It’s never fallen out and I don’t think it’s ever crossed my mind that it would,” he said.

What about the taste? Or the smell?

“Neither have been that bad,” Munich said. “I get a new pair of mitts almost every year so I don’t let it build up on me.”

Strouse added it’s fun to see his old pal this week in the national championships.

“It’s nice that he’s here too after not playing with him this entire season,” Strouse said. “I definitely missed the guy.”

Munich, who is originally from Oconomowoc, Wis., is a sophomore business management major at North Dakota State University and admitted balancing the books between school and curling can be difficult.

“We curled six or seven tournaments this year, so it’s a lot of time off from school,” he said. “I had to take a light credit load and I kind of have to balance hard and easy classes. I can’t just slam my schedule with a bunch of 300 or 400 level classes. It doesn’t work too well if you do. I had to take it kind of slow and at a pace.”

Still, Munich is having a lot of fun playing with Kevin Kakela, Kyle Kakela and Timothy Hodek based in Rolla, N.D.

“I really like playing front end," he said. "Playing the lead position has been a blast for me. I love sweeping and throwing those first rocks. It’s a great group of guys and I couldn’t ask for a better team.”