Around the League 36-But Who's Counting...

[Boom Boom Apathy]

The parents seem like real pieces of work if what is being reported is true.

To be clear, what I know of this situation is what I read in the last 3 pages of this thread.

Not absolving the kid of his actions though. Just saying the parents "apparently" both enabled and amplified his actions, and they had fully developed brains at the time.

 

[tarheelhockey]

This can be true, and yet, if any of these kids lose their one-in-a-million opportunity to be a pro athlete because of it...

*Good*.

Have empathy for shitty abusive jock kids all you want. There are lots and lots of jock kids out there who manage to not be abusive pieces of shit.

Every time a shitty jock kid gets their dream taken away from them, it gives parents and kids an object lesson that some of them desperately f***ing need.

I completely agree — but the time to make that dream disappear is when he’s 12 and needs to have his ass on the sidelines for a season to re-consider the importance of personal character. That’s when you actually get a material positive outcome.

Whether he’s an athlete or an insurance salesman, what’s the actual point of punishing him as a full-grown adult? Does this pay any sort of restitution to the victim? No. Does this somehow make Miller a better person? No. Does this make any 12 year old think twice before bullying a classmate? No.

All it does is give us a little vengeful thrill of seeing the adolescent bully’s future adult self get dragged. If he’s still out there actively harming people as a racist bully? Sure. But as far as we know that’s not actually the case, so it just doesn’t resonate to me at all. What I see here is justice delivered way too late to actually be meaningful, at the cost of opening a Pandora’s box of toxic scrutiny toward troubled children. I don’t particularly want to live in a society where 12 year olds already have a “permanent record” which is open to be ripped apart in the public square.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

I completely agree — but the time to make that dream disappear is when he’s 12 and needs to have his ass on the sidelines for a season to re-consider the importance of personal character. That’s when you actually get a material positive outcome.

Whether he’s an athlete or an insurance salesman, what’s the actual point of punishing him as a full-grown adult? Does this pay any sort of restitution to the victim? No. Does this somehow make Miller a better person? No. Does this make any 12 year old think twice before bullying a classmate? No.

All it does is give us a little vengeful thrill of seeing the adolescent bully’s future adult self get dragged. If he’s still out there actively harming people as a racist bully? Sure. But as far as we know that’s not actually the case, so it just doesn’t resonate to me at all. What I see here is justice delivered way too late to actually be meaningful, at the cost of opening a Pandora’s box of toxic scrutiny toward troubled children. I don’t particularly want to live in a society where 12 year olds already have a “permanent record” which is open to be ripped apart in the public square.

I will take this line of argument more seriously when there's evidence that this kid has apologized sincerely, like, one time.

I don't think it's such a terrible world when a 20 year old adult who apparently can't bring himself to say "wow I was a shitty 14 year old, I hurt people really badly, I apologize sincerely, and I'm in counseling now" has to maybe wait to get an NHL contract until he does say that.

 

[Stickpucker]

It's like the Friends episode where Chandler has to make it up to Joey for kissing a girl he was dating. He had to put himself in a box for 6 hours and think about what he did.

In this case....someone needs to rub candy in urinals and Mitch needs to film himself eating the candy and post it to twitter or whatever.

 

[Surrounded By Ahos]

And Boston has terminated his contract.

What an absolute clusterf***.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

And Boston has terminated his contract.

So a good "buy low" opportunity for Dundon?

 

[Navin R Slavin]

"The team stated that "new information" made the organization believes "it is the best decision at this time to rescind the opportunity for Mitchell Miller to represent the Boston Bruins."

Was there actual new information here? Or was the new information that everyone's mad at you for doing something so obviously stupid?

Boston Bruins part ways with controversial prospect Mitchell Miller, two days after signing

The Boston Bruins "will part ways" with Mitchell Miller, the controversial prospect who signed with the organization last week.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[Blueline Bomber]

"The team stated that "new information" made the organization believes "it is the best decision at this time to rescind the opportunity for Mitchell Miller to represent the Boston Bruins."

Was there actual new information here? Or was the new information that everyone's mad at you for doing something so obviously stupid?

Boston Bruins part ways with controversial prospect Mitchell Miller, two days after signing

The Boston Bruins "will part ways" with Mitchell Miller, the controversial prospect who signed with the organization last week.

www.cbsnews.com

Everything in their statement is completely bonkers. There was no new information presented, unless they did literally no research on the guy and didn't realize it wasn't an isolated incident. And, in fact, they could have just asked the Coyotes why they stepped away from him.

Also, his last statement implies young people shouldn't bully others because it might come back to bite them later in life, not because, you know...hurting others is bad.

Finally, Miller likely still got paid his massive signing bonus (unless the Bruins really opened themselves up to an easy lawsuit), so despite everything, the victim still hasn't really received a sincere apology and Miller basically received an inheritance-worth of money.

Like, they couldn't have f***ed up this situation much worse, especially considering how well that organization has started the year.

 

[Identity404]

 

[tarheelhockey]

I will take this line of argument more seriously when there's evidence that this kid has apologized sincerely, like, one time.

I don't think it's such a terrible world when a 20 year old adult who apparently can't bring himself to say "wow I was a shitty 14 year old, I hurt people really badly, I apologize sincerely, and I'm in counseling now" has to maybe wait to get an NHL contract until he does say that.

This goes back to where we were upthread — at this point, what could he possibly do which wouldn’t be interpreted as self-serving? He’s already written the apology letter, made public statements, reached out to the victim recently. The victim’s mother has declared all of that unacceptable.

So what else is he supposed to do? Any answer to that question is going to be judged as self-serving, so is this just a straight up lifetime ban pronounced by the Commissioner? Because that’s a hell of a thing in light of the existence of the CBA, and the fact that he was not declared draft-ineligible in the first place — not to mention all the behavior that has not resulted in the Commissioner issuing a unilateral lifetime ban*.

The idea of Bettman doing PR cleanup at the expense of a player’s entire career is provocative in isolation. But the idea that this is now policy for unacceptable behavior by middle schoolers is troubling on a different level. 12-14 is not an age where anyone should be accumulating a “permanent record” to be drudged back up and used to attack their life trajectory as an adult. It’s incredibly ill advised and there’s a reason that the legal system explicitly does not operate this way.

This situation strikes me as Bettman being deeply annoyed at the Bruins for keeping this story alive, and Miller being a particularly soft target for a draconian response because he’s already widely disliked and is not yet on an NHL roster. If Bettman stops the contract from going through, he can beat up on Miller all day and nobody’s going to say anything. But it’s an inappropriate reaction nonetheless, and shouldn’t be accepted as a legitimate precedent for how this league operates.


* namely: MacTavish and Heatley killing people, Ciccarelli and Stevens and Courtnall raping a minor, Kane beating a 62-year-old man, numerous drug running operations, numerous domestic abuse cases, countless sexual assault and exploitation cases, numerous cases of bullying and racism BY ACTIVE PLAYERS. The list is long and sordid.

 

[SoupNazi]

Everything in their statement is completely bonkers. There was no new information presented, unless they did literally no research on the guy and didn't realize it wasn't an isolated incident. And, in fact, they could have just asked the Coyotes why they stepped away from him.

Also, his last statement implies young people shouldn't bully others because it might come back to bite them later in life, not because, you know...hurting others is bad.

Finally, Miller likely still got paid his massive signing bonus (unless the Bruins really opened themselves up to an easy lawsuit), so despite everything, the victim still hasn't really received a sincere apology and Miller basically received an inheritance-worth of money.

Like, they couldn't have f***ed up this situation much worse, especially considering how well that organization has started the year.

I'm wondering if the "new information" was the fact that the organizations he supposedly volunteered with say he didn't do what he claimed.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

Here's what Cam Neely said directly. Note that, before the signing, Cam said that he spent a bunch of time with Miller and vetted him, and felt ok that Miller was sufficiently penitent.

The decision to sign this young man was made after careful consideration of the facts as we were aware of them: that at 14-years-old he made a poor decision that led to a juvenile conviction. We understood this to be an isolated incident and that he had taken meaningful action to reform and was committed to ongoing personal development. Based on that understanding we offered him a contract.

“Based on new information, we believe it is the best decision at this time to rescind the opportunity for Mitchell Miller to represent the Boston Bruins. We hope that he continues to work with professionals and programs to further his education and personal growth.

“We owe it to our fans, players, staff, partners and community to make sure that our practices and protocols are in keeping with the ethos that we demand from ourselves and as an organization. As such, we will be reevaluating our internal processes for vetting individuals who wish to earn the privilege of playing in the National Hockey League for the Boston Bruins.

There's a ton of stuff *we* don't know, but what we absolutely do know is that Gary Bettman, a Certified Scary f***ing Lawyer, felt 100% comfortable dropping the dime on this kid, and everyone *immediately* got in line. So we can safely assume that *he* knows enough to make this determination without fear of contradiction. The fact that this kid was USHL player of the year last year was not enough to save him.

Also note that this wasn't the press jumping on this story. It was Bettman himself, unprompted by the media, taking Cam Neely behind the woodshed in public for not doing his homework, and Cam Neely going "yup, message received."

We can speculate endlessly, but there's no reason to believe that Gary Bettman is speculating.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Honestly, the most surprising part to me was the players' responses. Most of the time, if players are asked about a signing, they'll either give some generic answer about how they're "looking forward to playing with [X]" or "Well, I leave that stuff to the GM".

In this case, they all gave very specific answers about how they were very against the signing and couldn't understand why the organization would go against the values it normally holds high.

Just wild to me.

 

[LostInaLostWorld]

This goes back to where we were upthread — at this point, what could he possibly do which wouldn’t be interpreted as self-serving? He’s already written the apology letter, made public statements, reached out to the victim recently. The victim’s mother has declared all of that unacceptable.

So what else is he supposed to do?

Let's see. He could have written the apology, made pubic statements, perhaps done some anti-bullying public service stuff in the years since he was a 14 year old "kid". He did not. Only recently why? Because his hand was forced. Tells me all I need to know.

Did you read the mother's statement posted above?

 

[tarheelhockey]

Let's see. He could have written the apology, made pubic statements, perhaps done some anti-bullying public service stuff in the years since he was a 14 year old "kid". He did not. Only recently why? Because his hand was forced. Tells me all I need to know.

Did you read the mother's statement posted above?

He did write the apology when he was 14. It’s posted upthread.

He didn’t issue a press release to the general public, but he did send a statement to all 31 organizations which was made publicly available.

He did do community outreach as an adult, that is vouched for by the Tri-Cities org.

He reached out to the victim directly and privately. That was made public by the mother who accused him once again of not being remorseful enough to have done it earlier.

The most recent thing is that he and his agent “met and committed to working with” almost half a dozen community orgs to plan out his future outreach. One of the orgs issued a clarification that they had indeed met, but that he was not actively working with them yet. Now the agent, a Black man who has worked at the front line of the game’s racial discrimination issues for his entire career, is being dragged for “lying” to cover up for a racist. Even though “met and committed to working with” is manifestly an accurate description of what happened (the org released a second statement to make that completely clear). But at this point, literally anything he does is being taken as self-serving and deceptive. The public reaction is a feedback loop without any room for an off-ramp.

Again, this would be fine if we were talking about adult consequences for adult decisions. You’ll recall that I was one of the folks in here who had serious misgivings about the Canes taking on DeAngelo (and Virtanen, and Corvo, lest we forget). But in this case we are talking about permanent adult punishment for childhood issues. That’s a dangerous precedent that the actual legal system generally frowns upon. Not to mention the unprecedented act of the Commissioner declaring a player permanently ineligible for contract because he’s a PR problem, which is a crazy power grab that’s just sliding under the radar here.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

Not to mention the unprecedented act of the Commissioner declaring a player permanently ineligible for contract because he’s a PR problem

Which makes it all the more likely that there's a reason for it that we're not privy to, especially considering the Bruins response.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Also, he admitted the "new information" they received was talking to the victim's family. Which means they didn't do so before signing him, and apparently forgot the Coyotes released him after DOING THE EXACT SAME THING

 

[Sens1Canes2]

Which makes it all the more likely that there's a reason for it that we're not privy to, especially considering the Bruins response.

I’m genuinely surprised you think the NHL offices are a well-oiled machine when it comes to stuff like this. Companies/whatever you’d consider the NHL and the Bruins cave to social media pressure *all the time.* That’s what this is, in my opinion.

Two weeks ago, everyone thought Ian Cole was a groomer and that the NHL’s efforts to contact the anonymous accuser consisted of “hey, DM us.”

Now they are crack investigators.

This is all social media. Outrage. Faux outrage, the outrage-du-jour if you will (insert Cam Neely joke here). I would wager a lot (if I had a lot) that the NHL has spoken to the mother … and taken everything she’s said at face value. And that’s the extent of their “investigation.”

Anyways … what league is this fellow playing in? I’m surprised they haven’t been taken to task.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

Anyways … what league is this fellow playing in? I’m surprised they haven’t been taken to task.

Ha, I was thinking the same thing. USHL Player of the Year last year, I think I read.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Which makes it all the more likely that there's a reason for it that we're not privy to, especially considering the Bruins response.

Possibly, and if that's the case it would change my opinion on that aspect of the situation.

That being said, the Commissioner's ability to impose discipline for off-ice conduct is pretty clearly enumerated in the CBA and specifically includes a right to a hearing. If this is a discipline related decision, it seems entirely extrajudicial on Bettman's part. He simply doesn't have the authority to declare a player ineligible by fiat. The hearing/appeal process is mandatory.

That leaves one other possibility, which is that Bettman in his typical fashion has discovered an eligibility issue and is using weasel-words ('I can't tell you that he'll ever be eligible') to give a particular impression to the public for PR purposes. Perhaps he's saying Miller is still draft-eligible and therefore cannot sign a contract, I dunno. @Lempo probably knows the CBA better than anyone else here, maybe he knows of some manner in which Miller could be ineligible to play.

 

[Daeavorn]

He did write the apology when he was 14. It’s posted upthread.

He didn’t issue a press release to the general public, but he did send a statement to all 31 organizations which was made publicly available.

He did do community outreach as an adult, that is vouched for by the Tri-Cities org.

He reached out to the victim directly and privately. That was made public by the mother who accused him once again of not being remorseful enough to have done it earlier.

The most recent thing is that he and his agent “met and committed to working with” almost half a dozen community orgs to plan out his future outreach. One of the orgs issued a clarification that they had indeed met, but that he was not actively working with them yet. Now the agent, a Black man who has worked at the front line of the game’s racial discrimination issues for his entire career, is being dragged for “lying” to cover up for a racist. Even though “met and committed to working with” is manifestly an accurate description of what happened (the org released a second statement to make that completely clear). But at this point, literally anything he does is being taken as self-serving and deceptive. The public reaction is a feedback loop without any room for an off-ramp.

Again, this would be fine if we were talking about adult consequences for adult decisions. You’ll recall that I was one of the folks in here who had serious misgivings about the Canes taking on DeAngelo (and Virtanen, and Corvo, lest we forget). But in this case we are talking about permanent adult punishment for childhood issues. That’s a dangerous precedent that the actual legal system generally frowns upon. Not to mention the unprecedented act of the Commissioner declaring a player permanently ineligible for contract because he’s a PR problem, which is a crazy power grab that’s just sliding under the radar here.

People just want to take vengeance on this kid because hes an easy target.

It feels good to punish those you deem wicked, especially in the times we live in.

People have become used to publicly flogging ne'er do wells on the internet.

I agree that the fact this kid did all thid at 14 and is not really being given a chance to redeem himself seems a bit zealous to me.

If people are going to destroy his life for something hes already apologized for, he has no incentive to improve as an adult. He has proof that no matter what he does someone will raise hell that its not enough.

 

[Svechhammer]

I totally agree, I just don’t add “or your employer can arbitrarily decide to fire you over it” to the end of that. At least not unless all employees are being actively checked for clearance of that particular bar.

Again we are talking about issues from someone’s childhood here, and there are WAY too many ways for that kind of practice to backfire.

Yeah but we're not talking about an employer. We're talking about a league and an organization that MM was not already a part of telling him that he's not welcome in it based on his previous legal issues.

There are plenty of things in life where you are permanently screwed for a one time screw up earlier in life.

 

[Svechhammer]

He did write the apology when he was 14. It’s posted upthread.

He didn’t issue a press release to the general public, but he did send a statement to all 31 organizations which was made publicly available.

He wrote an apology.... That his lawyers gave to the judge without copying the victim and his family. The first time the victim heard from him was last week, on Instagram, during a time when Boston would have been working out contract details.

So......... yeah.......

 

[tarheelhockey]

He wrote an apology.... That his lawyers gave to the judge without copying the victim and his family.

Yes, that's how a restraining order works.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Yeah but we're not talking about an employer. We're talking about a league and an organization that MM was not already a part of telling him that he's not welcome in it based on his previous legal issues.

There are plenty of things in life where you are permanently screwed for a one time screw up earlier in life.

The NHL is the governing body for the employer in this case. Their labor practices are collectively bargained and the powers of the Commissioner are enumerated in the CBA. Nowhere in that document does it say that the Commissioner can unilaterally declare anyone ineligible to be signed to a contract.

Either Bettman is referring to an eligibility issue which hasn't been made public yet (e.g. Miller's strange draft situation caused him to somehow remain draft-eligible for 2023, thus making him unable to sign a contract) or Bettman has significantly overstepped his authority in an unprecedented manner. One or the other.

As to the bolded, I don't know of any other scenario where a childhood court situation was used as a cause for termination. Children are children, there's a very good reason why they aren't charged as adults and why their cases are sealed. Eroding that standard is a dangerous game to play, even if it starts with someone who's easily dislikable.