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“I could see those guys playing in the CFL. That would be a great opportunity if there was a spot for two or three or four global players.

“That could help develop the game in Denmark and at the same time, it will give the Canadian football a broader audience. If you have a Danish player or Danish coach on a CFL team, I know people from Denmark will follow the CFL and people from Europe for that matter.”

Carlsen knows the CFL game up close, having served as a guest coach for the B.C. Lions last year. He’s also a former offensive lineman who fell in love with four-down football after seeing Andersen on Danish TV in the 1980s. Andersen still owns the NFL record for games played at 382, and he’s a Pro Football Hall of Famer.

“Here was this famous player who used to be a soccer player in Denmark, he went on to college and was drafted by the Saints and had a great career,” said Carlsen. “I thought, what is this American football? What is this game all about?

“I started to follow it on TV. I got the hang of it and thought this is the game for me. It’s a physical and tough game but it’s a tactical game at the same time. It has all the aspects I like to see in sports.

“That hooked me.”

He was a six-foot-one, 270-pound guard and centre who played the game strictly at the amateur level in his native Denmark. He got on in age and eased into coaching, starting with a one-year volunteer stint at Wagner College in New York. Decades later he’s still at it. The Lions’ gig came about from a long-time friendship with then B.C. special teams coach Jeff Reinebold. They knew each other from NFL Europe.

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“For my own development as a coach it was amazing,” said Carlsen. “Just being at that level, being around pro athletes, seeing how coach Wally (Buono) approached the team, it was a great experience that I learned a lot from.”

He’s looking forward to exactly that kind of exchange coming out of a relationship between his federation and the CFL.

dbarnes@postmedia.com

Twitter: @sportsdanbarnes