Friday Sips, featuring Hamilton's, Wrigley, and John Shurna

Lotsa Friday stuff! Let's get to it!

Injury report: Demetrius Dugar joins the cast of characters not able to suit up for NU, alongside Hunter Bates and Jimmy Hall. Dugar has fallen out of the CB rotation at this point in the year and wasn't really playing too well when he was in it. I don't see this effecting the lineup that much - interested to see what the backup, presumably Daniel Jones, can do spelling Quinn Evans.

Meanwhile, MarQueis Gray will purportedly play "a backup role" Saturday for Minnesota, although it's not clear whether that means he'll play a little bit or whether he'll literally be the backup QB and only play if necessary. Those damn tricky Minnesotans.

R.I.P. Hammies: I haven't seen it reported in any "news sources", but yesterday the news trickled out on FB and Twitter that Loyola bar Hamilton's is, in fact, closing. They wrote as such on their website.

After 80 years, Chicago's legendary Hamilton's Bar and Grill is closing. Our final day of business will be Saturday, October 27, 2012....

WE LOOK FORWARD TO PARTYING WITH YOU ONE LAST TIME !
1933 - 2012

Ahh man, if only I was going to be in Chicago October 27, 2012 for some reason! Wait...

Hammie's will be missed. It's not really an NU thing - Admittedly I never went there before my senior year, as such making me one of the few 21-year-olds present, I think this might be some of the reason they're closing? - but it was a welcome change of pace for the NU kids that made the trek from TKOE. It was good to see different human beings that you didn't recognize from every other time you went to a bar once in a while. Although, woah, how was that place in business for 80 years? What type of bar scene did Chicago have in 1933?

Wrigley redux: They're redoing Wrigley a teeny bit, and they're making it more accessible for a football field, because LOLOLOLOL SOMEBODY HAS TO PLAY THERE IN OCTOBER LOL THE CUBS ARE BAD.

Shurnupdate: I watched John Shurna play with the Knicks last night. It was cool! He plays professional basketball now! It wasn't his best effort: he was pretty disengaged on offense, camping in the corner, but that's probably what they want out of him. He went 1-for-3, one of which was an off-balance shot when someone was dumb enough to pass to him not in position with about a second left on the clock, and turned the ball over on an ill-advised attempt at driving the lane. He played okay on defense, although Martell Webster made him look pretty dumb on a ball-fake and he looked a little scrawny on the boards. The good news is that none of the other guys looking to make the roster played particularly well either. Chris Copeland looked downright bad and Henry Sims showed he couldn't do anything offensively. I'm a bit worried about Mychel Thompson, who earned a start, but he played poorly as well. A lot was made of Shurna having a -24 plus/minus rating, but that was a fluke caused by him being on a unit of all training camp signees and Steve Novak while Washington pushed its reserves and eventually starters. Sometimes plus/minus figures can look silly like that when the sample size is small - I don't think that's gonna keep him off the team. Five more preseason games, though, I'll watch most of em.