KFAN's Paul Allen set to make NHL debut calling Minnesota Wild games
Two years after the pandemic mothballed his first chance to call a Minnesota Wild game on the radio, KFAN's Paul Allen will finally make his NHL play-by-play debut in March.
Allen confirmed on his radio show Tuesday that he'll be the lead announcer on the Wild Radio Network for two games: March 21 when the Wild play at home against the Vancouver Canucks and March 24 in St. Paul against the Vegas Golden Knights.
The birdie chirps truth. Excited. https://t.co/f0xpupGHtD
— Paul Allen (@PAOnTheMic) February 15, 2022
Allen, who is the longtime radio voice of the Minnesota Vikings and the track announcer at Canterbury Park, was supposed to call a couple of Wild games in 2020 until the emergence of COVID-19 and the global pandemic led to the NHL abruptly pausing its season.
The primary play-by-play voice of the Wild is Joe O'Donnell, who is in his first year at the NHL level after replacing longtime announcer Bob Kurtz. Kevin Falness also calls Wild games when he's not the studio host, and every play-by-play announcer is joined by analyst Tom Reid.
Minnesota Wild games can be heard on 43 stations Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota and South Dakota.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.