Minnesota Vikings News And Links, 8/2

There's a full week of Training Camp in the books for the Minnesota Vikings, ladies and gentlemen, and we're going to continue providing you incredible coverage of what's going on down in Mankato. Just a heads-up for everyone. . .on Saturday, we're going to have one Open Thread that's going to kick off at about 5:30 PM Central time or so, because we have two pretty big events going on at the same time.

The induction ceremony for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2013. . .which, in case you haven't heard, includes former Vikings wide receiver Cris Carter. . .will start at 6:00 PM Central time on the NFL Network. Don't know where Carter is in the proceedings, but I'm guessing he'll be close to the end. In addition, the Vikings will be holding their annual scrimmage at Blakeslee Field from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM tomorrow evening. So, we'll just be having one big Open Thread extravaganza to cover both things. Make sure you keep your eyes open for that.

Since the last time we brought you an Open Thread. . .

-Fran Tarkenton advanced in our Greatest Viking Of All Time Tournament, and we gave you the final "1 vs 4" match-up of the Sweet 16 with Bud Grant taking on Chris Doleman. The "2 vs 3" match-ups in our tournament will start on Monday.

-Arif posted his notebook for Day Five of Vikings' Training Camp, as well as put together another episode of Norse Code (along with Dusty O'Connell) with some prognostification and other such shenanigans. (Yeah, prognostification isn't a real word. Whatever.)

-Offensive tackle DeMarcus Love will be missing for the Vikings' first four regular season games. . .if he makes the team.

From some other sites around the internet. . .

-ESPN has a "Camp Confidential" about our favorite football team. Nothing terribly earth-shattering.

-Want to go see the team in London? The Vikings' official website is giving you an opportunity to win a trip to the United Kingdom.

-Been wondering what happened for former Vikings defensive tackle Chris Hovan? Randball was. . .and he found out.

The rules for the Open Thread are the same as they've always been, folks. No religion, no politics, no feeding the trolls, and keep the bad language to a minimum/use the spoiler tags if you're going to curse.

Our week of songs by the greatest rock band ever (in my opinion) continues.

With that, the beer light is on and the bar is open for Friday, folks! The Training Camp thread will be up here at about 10 AM Central time, and we'll have more good stuff for you throughout the day.