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Thursday sips, ft. more Northwestern hype, All-Americans, Lord Stanley, and LOL-ini

Chicago's NHL team won the Stanley Cup a few days ago. Did you hear? Also some Northwestern players are good, some future Northwestern players are good, and Illinois continues to be Illinois.

By Rodger Sherman
US PRESSWIRE

It's NBA Draft day, guys! Oh yeah, that doesn't really mean anything to Northwestern fans, does it? Ehh, whatever. Anyway, in case you didn't notice over on Twitter, Sippin' on Purple has a new Twitter account so that I can use my own to be me, so go follow it. Look at this thingy hanging over there on the right.


Anyway, onto links!

Did you know the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup? They did? Oh, cool! I had initially meant to Storify Northwestern players and coaches talking about it, but it all happened so fast. Instead, all I have is this:

BTW, fun theme of the NHL playoffs: Fitz crapping on his players/former players on Twitter about hockey:

There's also this:

And NU's least-skilled Tweeter:

Good series.

Also read my boy Ricky O'Donnell on how much Hawks fandom in Chicago has changed after Monday night.

NU HYPE: THERE'S A LOT OF IT, Y'ALL!

First off, this SI story about NU's recruiting prowess.

"They can see it," said Fitzgerald. "It's not hypothetical, it's not someday, it's not a hashtag, it's not anything like that. It's just real. And that's what we try to do is just be brutally honest to be able to show people exactly what they're gonna get."
YES YES YES YES YES.(By the way, if you're interested in a comprehensive breakdown of how recruiting is doing: BSD's State of the Union is must-look at stuff. You know, if you'd like to look at how every Big Ten team is doing prospect by prospect.)

Then, from the Rittenblog, NU as a contender:

"Our program is on the rise, but it has a very strong hunter mentality," (Fitz) told ESPN.com. "We're not going to allow ourselves to be hunted."
I recommend that story if just for the Kanye jokes, which I apparently did not corner the market on.

And from Athlon Sports, Three -- THREE! -- NU players made All-American teams. Venric Mark is on there twice -- first team punt-returner, third-team running back -- and Kain Colter is second-string all-purpose, Jeff Budzien second-team kicker. Mark deserves both, although that's the highest praise anybody has given him as an RB, Colter probably shouldn't be there -- he's a QB, not an all-purpose guy -- and Budzien should be first-team, but that's just me.

Dumb things I write: I broke down Heisman candidates from schools who have never won a Heisman -- yes, there's a Cat included -- and also broke down pitching forms of Jim Delany and John Swofford. Go Yankees!

Fun?: Northwestern Nebraska is the most entertaining game in the conference this year, says math. Was last year's game fun? I don't remember.

An update from Illini nation: Tim Beckman wrote letters to Wes Lunt every day, the only player he got from stalking Penn State players around State College last season after sanctions dropped is leaving Illinois for Northern Arizona, and he needs to tell his players not to wear Indian headdresses. (To be fair, they were wearing them for charity.) On the plus side, their projected win total is only six games lower than Northwestern's! Honestly, guys, am I punching down here? ROADTRIP!!!: Last but not least, this dude drove 3,000 miles to go to every Big Ten stadium, slept about five hours and changed, ate some Wendy's, and recorded the whole thing from a dashboard camera, Russian-style, then condensed it down to three minutes: Have a good one, guys!

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