Next Sunday marks the first Super Bowl since Lil Wayne got out of jail. At some point he’s going to say who thinks is going to win. And for some reason I care.

As a fan of his body of work, I implore Wayne to step up and do more than just make his prediction for the outcome of the game – he needs to rescue us from the musical direction of the Super Bowl thus far – Black Eyed Peas at halftime and just announced Christina Aguilera singing the National Anthem.

And don’t act like you don’t care about the music at the Super Bowl, you know you wish AC/DC was playing halftime.

All that considered, I’d very much appreciate it if Lil Wayne rattled off a Super Bowl rap sometime before next Sunday (he’ll probably log about 120+ hours in the studio between now and then). Just something upbeat to get us fired up for Pittsburgh – Green Bay that the kids and B.J. Raji can dance to.

And not for nothing, he should feel obligated after picking Favre to beat his hometown New Orleans in the NFC Championship last year.

For those of you who question whether Wayne could pull off a killer sports rap, check out this verse he did about Kobe a while back.

And I don’t think he’s going to considering that he’s retweeting stuff like this.

By now most sports fans are learning that Jay Cutler most likely tore a ligament in his knee, and that’s why we got to witness the brilliance and agony of Caleb Hanie (and just the agony of Todd Collins) yesterday. Cutler didn’t just quit, as some people – like MJD – may have suggested.

If you’re like me, you watched yesterday’s game in a crowded bar where you couldn’t hear the sound, and probably never thought that it was even a consideration that Cutler up and quit on his team. I think the other MJD, Matthew J. Darnell from Yahoo! Sports, summed it up best in in these two paragraphs:

The notion that he quit yesterday doesn’t make sense. Cutler was playing poorly, so he wanted out of the game? He was taking a beating, so he didn’t want to play anymore?

Like Jay Cutler has never played poorly or taken a beating before. As a matter of fact, if there’s anything that Jay Cutler has proven in his career, it’s that when he’s throwing interceptions, he is absolutely willing to stay on the field and keep throwing interceptions. It’s his defining trait.

Cutler diagnoses forth coming. As for Maurice, I’ll continue to follow him, but expect less offerings of remorse, more TwitPics…

UPDATE (2:45 PM EST): Lovie Smith sez Cutler has a sprained MCL, would have been questionable for the Super Bowl.

Since we’re living in the era of Instapaper, I thought it best to wait a few days to post about the longform profile that came out earlier this week about probably the sports blogosphere’s most prominent blogger of late, A.J. “Tethered to the Machine” Daulerio. He got a bunch of quotes in the article, and one of literally said You’re just kind of tethered to the machine.

In reality, I’m not going to quit sports blogging, because as Daulerio’s friend and the founder of his site Deadspin, Will Leitch, said recently: writing about sports is infinitely fun. However, this profile about how the rigors of the job contributed to Daulerio seeking counseling earlier this year definitely put me at my most solemn this week (and I saw Blue Valentine this week).

I guess call me naive for not assuming that dads were calling up Daulerio – weeping – about watching their daughters have sex in urine on a stadium floor bathroom.

Check out the story at GQ.com. Leave your own thoughts on A.J.’s profile in the comments or @mikehayes19

(Photo from GQ.com)

On Monday, ESPN.com columnist, former Associated Content VP and guy known best in some circles as the blogger personally uninvited to last year’s Blog With Balls sports blogger conference by Joakim Noah, Dan Shanoff, launched Quickish, an almost-realtime, editor-curated news recommendation service. I’ve been scanning it a few times a day and really enjoy it, predominantly because Shanoff, true to form, launched with sports as the flagship subject-matter.

If for nothing else, commend him for launching this before the Verizon iPhone announcement.

Here’s what TechCrunch had to say about Quickish…

News recommendation services are plenty, and they all try to crack a similar nut: getting news updates more rapidly in front of people who are likely to be interested in them. Quickish is no different, yet, as the name implies, recommendations for online news items are shared quickly but decidedly not instantaneously.


That’s because Quickish shuns automated systems and relies on editor-vetted news recommendations, which are nonetheless delivered at modern media consumption speed.


In Shanoff’s words:
“People have made it clear how they want to stay updated: fast. Quick to know something happened, quick to access the best of what is being said, quick to consume, quick to recognize if something is worth their time. Quickish is built for them.”

Personally, I’m up for vetted – hopefully more intelligent – content recommendation in 2011. Along with the launch of Quickish, consider the success The Daily Beast continues to build with The Cheat Sheet and the recent mass growth of Q&A platform Quora – who reserves the right to delete your question if it’s too foolish (Yahoo! Answers-esque). Maybe seeking smarter content will become a trend this year? Could mean big things for sites like Quickish if they do a good job.

For those who don’t know why I mentioned Joakim Noah…

Blogs With Balls 3.0 | Joakim Noah from HHR on Vimeo.

By now most hockey fans (and tangential hockey fans like myself) have had the pleasure of chuckling at Tampa Bay Lightning center Steve Stamkos’ botched penalty shot last night.

For the few of you who have not…

I like the butt slide in defeat after the fact.

It bears mentioning, however, that Stamkos is – or at least once was – a veritable stick handling wizard of sorts. In 2008, TSN.ca featured him in a segment showing off some master shootout moves – such as the spin-o-rama and the probably illegal flick-and-bat.

I think he was going for the flick-and-bat when he ate it last night.

In other news, hockey highlight are off the bizarre meter today. Did you see the puck split in half yet?

I’ll be honest, I don’t necessarily miss fantasy football right now. I finished a contemptible 9th place this year. Nevertheless, I can’t pass up a golden opportunity to make the Saints-Seahawks game more interesting this weekend.

This NFL postseason, those dastardly community organizers of the sports blogosphere, Blogs With Balls are originating playoff fantasy football. If you have a sports blog, you can go to BWB and register and select your team. Make sure you read the rules carefully (or you can just email Don like I did). To summarize, there’s no draft, you just pick your roster. There are certain stipulations, but as they mention “the goal is to create a roster that is just different enough to allow you to win.” Just make sure that roster includes Drew Brees.

Winner takes home a Timex e-Altimeter watch. Based on how I’ve faired in fantasy of late, I’m not going to bother looking up what e-Altimeter means.

Good luck to all my fellow sports bloggers who get in on this. Hope you pick the correct Patriots for your squad.

(Photo of Charlie Whitehurst, Seattle Seahawks might-be starting QB, c/o of Battle Red Blog)

Following up my post from last week/last year crowdsourcing a good hockey book. I like the term crowdsourcing much more after reading this definition.

I decided to go with Blades of Glory by John Rosengren, which I picked up for a dollar off Half.com right before this (love me some Half.com). Minneapolis sportswriter Rosengren tells the story of the the Jefferson High School Jaguars of Bloomington, MN – coached by “the winningest hockey coach in the state,” Tom Saterdalen.

From Amazon:

Granted unlimited access to the team in its 2000-01 season, Rosengren attended “every team meeting, practice, and game” and became intimately involved with the team, its members’ parents, and its fans. Despite some disturbing incidents, such as discovering that some players were taking banned performance-enhancing substances, Rosengren found that the Jaguars’ “quest revealed the beauty and goodness of the game” even as it “exposed issues troubling to youth sports.” Kind of a Season on the Brink for hockey, Rosengren’s portrait of this highly rated team of teenagers–first ranked nationally among high-school hockey teams–its travails, and its accomplishments is not to be missed.

If there’s one good story about a fight in stands between hockey parents, I’ll be satisfied.

Thanks to the hockey bloggers who helped me out with their insights, especially Frank from Pensburgh and Chemmy from Pension Plan Puppets. I like doing these posts looking for good sports read. I may have to start a separate blog dedicated to such. Call it Voracious ______ (Walt Clyde Frazier, help me out).

Be advised, thoughts on Blades of Glory to come.

Last spring, I was interested in reading a good boxing book. I put the message out on here and was strongly urged to read The Harder They Fall, by Budd Schulberg. It was an excellent, excellent book. So, I’m doing it again. This time looking for recommendations on a good hockey book. Thank you, HBO 24-7, for recapturing my interest in the sport.

Looking for suggestions, but here are six I pulled off Amazon that look solid. Leave insights in the comments and help me spend those Kindle dollars, puck fiends.

The Game by Ken Dryden

Tretiak : The Legend by Vladislav Tretiak

The Code: The Unwritten Rules Of Fighting And Retaliation In The NHL by Ross Bernstein

Why Is the Stanley Cup in Mario Lemieux’s Swimming Pool?: How Winners Celebrate With the World’s Most Famous Cup by Kevin Allen

Goon: The True Story of an Unlikely Journey into Minor League Hockey by Adam Frattasio

Blades of Glory: The True Story of a Young Team Bred to Win by John Rosengren

Got to squeeze in one last post before Christmas.

To supplement the astute observations that took place throughout 2010 on Steady Burn I posted quite a bit on my Posterous – mostly music videos and musical performances that I enjoyed during the year. Including the best below starting with Lil Wayne and Eminem on SNL last week.

Note: Several of these were originally posted as band appearances on Jimmy Fallon that have since expired. I did my best to find adequate substitutions.

Subscribe to my Posterous if you’d like to experience much of the same in 2011.

Yeasayer “Ambling Alp” LIVE w/ Sleigh Bells Philly 5/5/10 from ‘SUP Magazine on Vimeo.

Record Club: INXS “New Sensation” from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.

See you next week or in 2011, friends.

What can’t he do? What can’t @The_Real_Shaq do?

On Monday night, Shaq led the Boston Pops orchestra in three songs as conductor. It was the latest stunt in his season long quest to immerse himself hilariously in the New England culture. As a native New Englander, I have three words for the big bandleader: Revolutionary. War. Reenactment.

(video and photo via Boston.com)