EE sign Danish tackle
Nielsen comes long way from Copenhagen, but No. 2-overall pick should bolster line
A quick Google brings up a pretty routine list of Denmark's most popular sports.
From golf and swimming, to sailing and badminton, heck, even handball and horse riding made the cut.
But nowhere will you find football — unless, of course, you're using the more worldly term for Denmark's official national sport of soccer, which leads the way as its most popular registered activity with around 350,000 members.
And that's in a country with a population of just 5.8 million.
So, it's no surprise Steven Nielsen had to look outside of those borders to pursue a professional calling in the other form of football much more familiar here in North America, which, on his way to his present size of 6-foot8 and 307 pounds, would prove a decidedly better fit.
“I played soccer, which is football over here, growing up and I played handball a little bit and I just never found a sport that suited me,” Nielsen said.
“I was too big and too aggressive and I kept taking penalties, so I never really found my sport.
“And then my brother started playing football, American football. I watched him play for about a year and I just fell in love with the sport. I started playing and I just fell more in love with it.”
So, it was with affectionate eyes Nielsen began looking across the Atlantic Ocean, where he attended La Lumiere high school in La Porte, Ind., before springboarding to Eastern Michigan University, where he made 48 starts, mainly at tackle.
On Thursday, Nielsen took his first step to the pro ranks when he was taken off the board by Edmonton immediately after the B.C. Lions picked Jake Ford with the first-overall choice, as one of four Australian punters taken in the opening round.
The rolling joke, of course, was the Lions, coming off just five wins last season, are worried they might be punting a lot.
But Edmonton general manager Brock Sunderland had at least a few scouts' heads nodding with the No. 2 choice.
“He, in my view, is a Day 1 starter, without a doubt. It's a really good pick,” one CFL personnel guy (not with Edmonton) said, adding Nielsen is athletic for a big man.
“If he doesn't start, I'll be flabbergasted. At best, he is a starting right tackle, at worst, he is a starting guard.”
Considering his hometown of Copenhagen is more than two degrees of latitude north of Edmonton, Nielsen said he will have no problem moving to his new home base in North America's most far-flung football stadium.
“Not at all, and I love playing in the cold, too,” said Nielsen.
“I hate playing in the heat, so it's perfect for me.”
It might not have been the exact draft day he always envisioned for himself, and not just because a global pandemic forced the entire proceedings to be held virtually, either.
Of course, since it was the first all-encompassing international CFL draft of its kind, nothing like it has existed to even bother dreaming about beforehand.
“It was very exciting and, to be honest, I was a little bit surprised I had gotten picked second overall,” Nielsen said. “I was expecting to go somewhat high just from my experience, but second overall, it's a dream come true and I'm just excited to get up there and help Edmonton any way I can.”
WORLD LEADER
In March 2019, Edmonton was awarded the first overall selection in the CFL'S inaugural draft excursion involving another country. And with the top pick in the joint CFL-LIGA de Futbol Americano Profesional, the team chose receiver Diego Jair Viamontes Cotera.
The five-foot-10, 189-pound former Mayas CDMX star spent the first 17 weeks on Edmonton's practice squad before being activated to make his CFL debut on Oct. 12, 2019, in the role of kick returner.
Three weeks later, he was listed to start in Edmonton's regular-season finale against the Saskatchewan Roughriders — and would have become the first global player to start a game — but seeing as he never ended up taking a single snap on offence, that honour is still up for grabs.
In and out: On Thursday, Edmonton also drafted three other NCAA products, including Washing State DL Misiona Aiolupotea-pei, originally from New Zealand, in the second round (17th overall) … Towson University DL Tibo Debaillie, of Belgium, and all of his 31 reps on the bench press at the global combine, was taken in the third round (20th overall) … And they stuck on the defensive line in the fourth and final round with 35th-overall selection Matt Leo, a six-foot-seven Australian out of Iowa State who spent 2020 with the NFL'S Philadelphia Eagles as part of that league's International Player Pathway Program. “They may not get him for a year or two, but he's a big athletic rugby guy. I've seen him, he's really tall, more of a linear build,” said the same personnel man. “Imposing, taller than thick. That's a really good pick for them, even if they don't get him right away.”