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The most interesting sports story out of Vancouver this week has had nothing to do with the Canucks.  But imagine for one second if it did.

Picture this Scene

The Canucks are down 4-3 to the Ducks late in the third period; the Sedins rush up the ice and find themselves in a 2-on-1 situation.  Looking through the defender at Daniel, Henrik decides that his first read – the cross-ice pass to his brother – is unavailable.  Simultaneously, out of the corner of his eye he notices Mikael Samuelsson jumping into the play as a trailer.

He makes the pass back to Samuelsson, his second read.  Unfortunately, the puck is about 2 feet ahead of Sammy`s reach.  He misses it, time expires, and the Canucks lose the game.

Angered by the outcome, Captain Henrik, pulls his helmet off and throws it to the ice in disgust.  Then, in front of all the fans at the arena and watching on TV, he turns towards Samuelsson and lets him have it:

Henrik: What the f*** are you doing Mikael? How did you miss that pass?

Samuelsson: I was skating towards the net, I couldn’t reach your pass, it was too far ahead of me!

Henrik: Mikael, you should be skating at full speed on a 3-on-1, crashing the net! What’s wrong with you?

Samuelsson: I didn’t expect you to pass it there, Henke!

Henrik: Where the hell did you think I’d pass it, you moron!

Now imagine that this war of words continued all the way down the hallway, with more helmets thrown and more yelling once they reached the locker-room.  How would the rest of the team react to their new captain’s behaviour?

Back to the CFL and Printers

Through the nature of the sport and the quarterback position, Casey Printers is the default captain of the Lions, and this was the type of childish, bone-headed behaviour he displayed after giving the game away to the Blue Bombers on Monday.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it was all his fault – anyone who watched knows that the entire team imploded – but seeing the Lions’ leader berating his teammate, O’Neill Wilson, publicly: something’s wrong with that picture.

The Signs Were In the Offing

Perhaps the Lions and their fans should have seen this coming.  Before he signed with the Lions late last season, Printers wrote a book called From High School to the Pros: The Ultimate Guide for the Student Athlete.

Some quotes from the book are written in this article on The Province’s website.

I use these poignant lines to illustrate a point:

-If I can’t applaud my accomplishments, who can?

-As the CEO of Me, Inc., you should always be working to improve your net worth.

-My goal was, and still is, to be a Super Bowl-winning quarterback twice over.

-The more humble you are, the more people will want to help you.

When reading these, humility is not the first word that comes to mind.  That is until we come across the last one and we saw see that to Printers, being humble is a tool to be used to get people to help him.

Anytime you’ve ever seen a true strong leader in sports, have you ever him talk about his morals and ethics?  Henrik Sedin, Wayne Gretzky, Joe Sakic, Steve Yzerman – can you picture any of them ever standing up and telling people how to be a strong leader and how humble they are?

They don’t talk about it, because they live it.  One note: if they did ever talk about it, they would at least get the message right, unlike ex-BC Lion Casey Printers.