Mike Hlas

It's ticket-punching season in sports, and the references to that must end immediately No one punches tickets anymore. And movie stars with any self-respect need not try to persuade me to change cell phone-services.

Hlas Out of Bounds: A list of minor irritations plaguing me, from Carver cones to Billy Bob Thornton, and especially talking heads who say a winning tournament team just punched its ticket. mikehlas.substack.com/p/its-ticket...

The Oklahoma City Thunder are signing Payton Sandfort to a two-way NBA contract out of their OKC Blue G League affiliate, Ross Aroyo and Mark Bartelstein of @PrioritySports tell ESPN. Sandfort joined the OKC program after being undrafted from Iowa last June.

OK, don't read anything into this other than it's a what-if question. What if you decided to liquidate all your assets and take up residence in another nation, knowing the varying difficulties of doing that in each nation that interests you? Which would you pick?

A Path to Olympic Gold, Jesse Jackson, Grinnell, ...Tuna Casserole (yay or nay?) and more

Iowa's best newspaper: iowawriters.substack.com/p/a-path-to-...

Larry David Agreed to Interview His Daughter Cazzie. She Had Other Ideas. Cazzie David's new book, "Delusions," explores the anxieties of young adulthood. Who better to interview her about it than her famously anxious dad?

Not having very many close friends bothers me. Especially since Larry David isn't one of them. www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/cazz...

The one thing you should always have in your bathroom, according to a Very Wise realtor hmmmm perhaps it’s a toilet 🤔 idk

is it a toilet, it’s a toilet isn’t it

the average american eats 5 hotdogs a year in their sleep

You'll sing a different tune when you need a presidential pardon. Of course, you'll have to "donate" a seven-figure amount to get it.

It's a good day for some Campbell's Soup.

Grinnell College men's basketball is still wildly different from the norm, but it's also now a champion The Pioneers take "The System" into the Midwest Conference postseason tournament this week with a shiny 20-3 record

Hlas Out of Bounds: The Grinnell men's basketball team is still routinely scoring 100+ points per game, but it's been doing a lot of something else lately: Winning. mikehlas.substack.com/p/grinnell-c...

I'm not a meterologist.

Let's not play two.

East Main Street, Newark NJ.

The winners have to play the next day. The losers get to go home.

To say that a lot of people wlll be conflicted during Tuesday's "action" is an understatement.

Corniglia. There are no Winter Olympics in this part of Italy, but something rarer than a U.S. gold medal in men's ice hockey has just occurred. Namely, a parking space has opened up.

I’m so proud of these dudes whose social media content I will never, ever check

I didn't know who Jack Hughes was before this morning.

Hlas Out of Bounds: AC/DC, the band that gave Iowa football fans "Back in Black," is playing a couple of Big Ten stadiums this summer. Is Kinnick one of them? No, it's shameful to the school and the band. mikehlas.substack.com/p/how-is-thi...

Here in Valdez, Alaska, we cope.

Hlas column for HawkFanatic.com: Bennett Stirtz puts his teammates and the Iowa student section on his shoulders in win over No. 9 Nebraska. hawkfanatic.com/2026/02/18/h...

Loved it.

I couldn't agree more.

Iowa, Iowa State and most other major-college basketball teams rarely reflect the school names on their jerseys Nebraska's ninth-raked men's team plays at Iowa Tuesday night with its head coach and leading scorer both from Iowa, while the Hawkeyes will start on one from the state

Hlas Out of Bounds: Pryce Sandfort coming back to Iowa City tomorrow with Nebraska is a reminder that what Jerry Seinfeld said holds true. We root for laundry. mikehlas.substack.com/p/iowa-iowa-...

Robert Duvall was a giant. He's known for being in blockbusters like "The Godfather" and "Apocalypse Now." But he was so good, period. He got an Oscar for best actor in "Tender Mercies," a terrific smaller movie. Oh, he was so good in "Network."

Twitter is down! Repeat, Twitter is down!

Hlas column: Reality of the Hawkeye men’s limitations this season was vivid and vexing vs. Purdue - Hawk Fanatic By Mike Hlas IOWA CITY, Iowa – So now we’ll see how Iowa men’s basketball draws for an 8 p.m. game this coming Tuesday. The guess here isn’t really a guess at all. It won’t be standing room only when ...

My column for HawkFanatic.com: The reality of the Iowa men's basketball team's limitations this season was vivid and vexing in its 78-57 loss to No. 7 Purdue Saturday at Carver. It also shouldn't be surprising. Rome and Gonzaga weren't built in a day. hawkfanatic.com/2026/02/14/h...

Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. I'm at Carver for hawkfanatic.com, doing a postgame column on the Purdue-Iowa men's basketball extravaganza. Maybe the game will be newsworthy. Maybe it will be something even more. The operative word is "maybe."

C'mon. They were both sensational. They were Expos.

My all-time fave was Pepe Frias. He had 0 home runs in 429 games with the team. He played 5 straight years with the team without amassing more than 8 RBI in any of them. The '76 Expos went 55-107, and couldn't have done it without Pepe.

Nice to hear that. I appreciate it.