Jared Allen to make professional curling debut on Friday

Earlier this year, we brought you a story about how former Minnesota Vikings’ great Jared Allen had come to embrace the sport of curling. While it’s something that most of us only really follow once every four years when the Winter Olympics come around, for Allen it was apparently something more than that. . .so much so that he said he was going to try to prepare himself for a run at making the Olympic team in 2022.

He’s going to be taking the first step towards that on Friday afternoon, and anyone that’s in the northern reaches of Minnesota will be able to check it out if they want to.

According to Bring Me the News, Allen is part of a team that is going to be taking part in the Curl Mesabi Classic in Eveleth, Minnesota. Eveleth is about an hour or so north of Duluth.

Allen isn’t the only former NFL player on his squad. Some of his teammates are former St. Louis Rams quarterback Marc Bulger, former Tennessee Titans linebacker Keith Bulluck, and former Titans offensive tackle Michael Roos.

The debut of the All-Pro Curling team. . .whose logo features a curling rock, a football, and a pint of beer. . .might be a short one, though. In the first round of the Curl Mesabi Classic, they’re going up against Team Shuster. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because they were on hand to sound the Gjallarhorn at U.S. Bank Stadium on Sunday before the Vikings’ victory over the Green Bay Packers.

Oh, and they also won the men’s gold medal in curling in the most recent Winter Olympics, the first time an American men’s team had done that.

If you want to watch Jared Allen and company in their professional curling debut. . .the debut for Allen, in any case. . .it would appear that they will have a live stream on their YouTube channel. Things get underway from Eveleth at 5:30 PM Central time on Friday afternoon.

Best of luck to Jared Allen and the rest of his curling squad!