This evening started much the same as any other. I cooked a delicious meal for my family, helped my children brush their teeth, and then herded the youngsters up to bed for storytime. Tonight's selection, by one Mr. Roger Hargreaves, was "Mr. Tickle", a parable about, um...molestation? In any event, it was a solid if unspectacular selection by my 4 year old (the 2 year old is partial to Faulkner). After getting the boys into bed and taking my post at the chair in the next room, I broke into some of this week's comic books (yeah, I read comics, wanna fight about it?!?). About fifteen minutes into nerding out, the steady patter of rain against the roof became a racket reminiscent of Beirut circa 1982. Startled beyond belief, my children scurried into my arms as we watched the most intense hail storm in memory from the ledge of our upstairs window.

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One night of trolling Chelsea fans was enough. Tonight we bring you the trailer for "Old People Playing With Guns 2". I actually saw the first one in theatres because I thought it would be funny. It was terrible. Wait for DVD/BluRay.

Anyway, here's your thread. Some happenings on TV tonight include: Playoff basketball (Miami @ NY [TNT], followed by OKC @ Dallas), Playoff hockey (Philadelphia @ New Jersey [NBC Sports Network], followed by St Louis @ Los Angeles), and another assortment of baseball games. If sports isn't your bag, then Paul Rudd returns to Parks & Recreation [NBC], or you can watch Eagleheart on Adult Swim at 11 PM

All the attention from the draft should hopefully be a great value during the next go round of recruiting. It's tough to get any love from the Big Ten blog from the mothership, or anywhere else.

It's crazy, but now even Vic, the guy who posts videos for the Packers thinks whenever you are in doubt during the draft, it's always a great idea to pick the BHA - Best Hawkeye Available! Go Hawks!!!

check it out here

Hey dudes. I'm GuysToothGap, or Guy, (or I guess ToothGap?). Been a long time reader of BHGP and figured eh, sure, I'll sign up. I'm 25. I graduated from UNI in 2010, and still reside in Cedar Falls where I work in marketing. Pretty average life of a recent grad.. broke, crappy apartment, faint smell of booze and shame. (and uhh.. skunks. yeah, skunks.)

I'm a lifelong Hawkeye, I cheer as hard for them when they play UNI as I do when they play Ohio St. My favorite Hawkeye is too tough of a question, so I'll go top 5.. Tavian Banks, Tim Dwight, Bob Sanders, Drew Tate, and Marvin McNutt. Top 5 basketball is Chris Kingsbury, Dean Oliver, Reggie Evans, Greg Brunner, and Matt "Gator" Gatens.

Excited to be a member!

Guy

Greetings Goldpantsia, long time no see. My life is a little busier than it was a year ago, but time permitting I'm hoping to post an update of the player development story I wrote last year, with another year's recruiting and draft classes added into the mix. Maybe this weekend.

But there's one little piece of Iowa-specific information that I don't think should wait. If you can recall what I was doing last year, I basically was just comparing the Rivals rankings of recruits at various programs to the fraction of those recruits that were eventually drafted into the NFL. There were some stories involved, for instance Iowa under Ferentz has excelled at developing its incoming talent into NFL ready players. And a lot of interesting discussion was sparked about just what it all meant. This year I am hoping to go into a bit more geographic detail with the updated analysis. For example, let's say you are a D1 recruit from - I don't know - Iowa. Where should you attend school if you want to maximize your chances of playing at the next level?

I think there are very few questions that shouldn't be answered in the form of a table, and this one is no exception. Let's use the same methods as last year, but with one more year of data (recruiting classes 2002-2009 matched to NFL drafts 2004-2012), and answer that question. Let's give our state of Iowa recruit a concrete answer to which school gives him the best chance at getting to the next level:

The numbers don't lie, and these numbers are not whispering. If you are a recruit from Iowa that cares about having a shot at the NFL, then when Iowa offers - you should say yes.

Paging Jake Campos. You have been blessed with the greatest developer of talent in college football right in your backyard (spoiler alert!). Consider taking advantage.

I know this video isn't from the Playoffs but it's still fantastic.

1) First Incident

Darren McCarty vs. Claude "Turtle" Lemieux (via j4s0nn)

2) Followup at the next game they played.

Darren McCarty vs. Claude Lemieux (via NYR21135)

I wish more sports could settle it on the ice/field/court this way. I really do. Anyway. BRING ON THE PLAYOFF HOCKEY (and Draft talk if you want to continue to ruin tomorrow's INPIYLTI)

(EDIT: We'll just use this thread for today's discussion, too. Hopefully several Iowa players are drafted. -- RB)

via purplejesus.files.wordpress.com

Rounds 1-3 of the 2012 NFL Draft are in the books. Now it's time for the value picks. Several Iowa guys could get drafted today -- Marvin McNutt, Adam Gettis, Jordan Bernstine, Marcus Zusevics, etc.

In any event, here's your open thread to discuss the draft goings-on, as well as your usual Hamsterdam off-topic madness. There's plenty of baseball on TV as well as NHL and NBA playoff games.

via mit.zenfs.com, because the NFL Draft is all about FASHION~!

Here's your thread to chitchat about the NFL Draft, which gets started tonight at 6:30pm CT with coverage on both ESPN and NFL Network. Both networks swear they aren't going to be spoiling picks in advance like they have the last few years, which would be a very welcome change. The first two picks are basically set in stone (Andrew Luck to the Colts and Robert Griffin III to the Redskins and if those two teams take longer than five minutes apiece to get their envelopes in, they should lose their picks), so for all intents and purposes the Minnesota Vikings are on the clock. Hopefully they use up all 15 minutes and don't get a pick in. That was always fun.

Meanwhile, feel free to talk about the draft to your heart's content in this thread, as well as the NHL playoffs (there are two Game 7s tonight, Ottawa-New York and Florida-New Jersey) and the last night of the NBA regular season. Oh, and baseball. Probably some baseball, too. Meh.

The usual rules of open threading apply. We'll be bumping this thread up tomorrow night and again Saturday unless it gets too full; in that case, we'll just make a new thread. Be good.

Thread is still pretty light, so it's back again for day 3. Iowa City had a pretty important visitor today, so I had to use a photo from said visit to lead off the evening.

(Sorry for the poor quality, I'm no HEC or Hawk6894.)

Tonight: Nothing on network TV. NHL: Game 7 of Washington @ Boston MLB: More KC-Cleveland and Minneosta-Boston. St Louis already ended hopes of a Cubs series sweep. Probably a boatload of NFL draft talk on ESPN if you can't wait until tomorrow.

Weekend Hamsterdam is running late. I hear there's something going on in Iowa City this weekend that may be worth chatting about. Enjoy your weekend, and mind the rules, or Mr. Angle will find you.

via i.usatoday.net