Bruins sign Mitchell Miller to an ELC - now "parting ways"

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SoSH's Doug Neidermeyer
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Your perspective has been valuable. I think it comes down to, we shouldn't even be in this position. The signing was dumb and the entire situation is a shitshow. There was no need to sign this kid, I'm sure there have been kids that have gone undrafted for less.

I think we can both agree that two things can be true here: he deserves a second chance, but that playing in the NHL is a privilege. He's not talented enough for the Bruins to put themselves on the line like this, just a complete unforced error.

Now that they have, hopefully they can both turn this into as positive.
Agreed. This kid isn't the next McAvoy, or Pastrnak, or Bergeron. He'll be lucky if he's the next Zboril. Bringing this much scrutiny on the organization for a player with a less than 25% chance of making a difference in the NHL was dumb.

I sincerely hope he's changed. I sincerely hope he uses what's happened as a result of his actions as a way to teach others what not to do. I wish he wasn't trying to do that with the Bruins.
 

Two Youks

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Jun 18, 2013
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The article isn't entirely glowing, either:

Before the NHL Draft, Elite Prospects reached out to several NHL sources and found that numerous teams had left Miller off their draft boards. Here is an excerpt from a piece written by J.D. Burke, the site’s editor, explaining why Miller was excluded: “There is a commonly held view among everyone within this segment of the league that Miller’s camp hasn’t been forthright in addressing their off-the-ice concerns, and when they have, that Miller has not interviewed well.”
This assessment has more or less played out in real time here. Lots of talk from his camp about how sorry he is, and how he's working to be better. But, a sizeable portion of that work was court mandated or team mandated, while some of the rest seem to be half-assed attempts at doing something with the ulterior motive of getting back on the ice (see: the dumb attempt at an Instagram apology the week of his signing, apparently never actually working with at least one of the non-profits mentioned by his agent per the Tweet earlier in the thread).

I'll be more impressed when he doesn't merely refer to his campaign of abuse as a single incident, or when he doesn't add "my life was ruined, too" in the same breath as when talking about the actual victim.
 

GB5

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Aug 26, 2013
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With regard to his signing and eligibility to play, in my opinion both sides are wrong.

The Bruins took a huge public relations risk in signing this kid. Did they think starting 9-1 alllowed them to sneak this through with less questioning?

This kid is going to have to go through a ton of work and get fortunate to be accepted by say 75% of his own locker room. Some likely will never forgive.

He is going to be target number 1 of every opposing team, maybe the refs, and not sure who else.
He is a 5’10 defenseman. If this was a Victor Hedman type defensive prospect where you essentially KNEW that he was going to be legit, that would maybe get you closer to tipping the scales to reward over risk. Not for me, but I could see the argument a little clearer.

As for the league what they are doing is underhanded. They knew all about this kid after AZ drafted him. They didn’t choose to suspend him, make him ineligible, or to the best of my knowledge send something to the teams saying don’t go near this kid or there will be repercussions.
When the Bruins signed him, the league approved the contract. When the media then turned, they after the fact state that the kid is ineligible. There were no new infractions that I am aware of. League trying to look tough here and it’s so fraudulent.
My guess is the AHL will make him ineligible and this will force the B’s hand who will then release him.
I wonder how hard the players Union will fight for this kid, because I think on paper they have a good claim.
 

Cotillion

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Jun 11, 2019
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With regard to his signing and eligibility to play, in my opinion both sides are wrong.

The Bruins took a huge public relations risk in signing this kid. Did they think starting 9-1 alllowed them to sneak this through with less questioning?

This kid is going to have to go through a ton of work and get fortunate to be accepted by say 75% of his own locker room. Some likely will never forgive.

He is going to be target number 1 of every opposing team, maybe the refs, and not sure who else.
He is a 5’10 defenseman. If this was a Victor Hedman type defensive prospect where you essentially KNEW that he was going to be legit, that would maybe get you closer to tipping the scales to reward over risk. Not for me, but I could see the argument a little clearer.

As for the league what they are doing is underhanded. They knew all about this kid after AZ drafted him. They didn’t choose to suspend him, make him ineligible, or to the best of my knowledge send something to the teams saying don’t go near this kid or there will be repercussions.
When the Bruins signed him, the league approved the contract. When the media then turned, they after the fact state that the kid is ineligible. There were no new infractions that I am aware of. League trying to look tough here and it’s so fraudulent.
My guess is the AHL will make him ineligible and this will force the B’s hand who will then release him.
I wonder how hard the players Union will fight for this kid, because I think on paper they have a good claim.
Yep... he is being done dirty by the NHL office.
 

GreyisGone

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The article isn't entirely glowing, either:



This assessment has more or less played out in real time here. Lots of talk from his camp about how sorry he is, and how he's working to be better. But, a sizeable portion of that work was court mandated or team mandated, while some of the rest seem to be half-assed attempts at doing something with the ulterior motive of getting back on the ice (see: the dumb attempt at an Instagram apology the week of his signing, apparently never actually working with at least one of the non-profits mentioned by his agent per the Tweet earlier in the thread).

I'll be more impressed when he doesn't merely refer to his campaign of abuse as a single incident, or when he doesn't add "my life was ruined, too" in the same breath as when talking about the actual victim.
Yea this is what it comes down to me. He doesn’t seem to actually be sorry or trying to improve himself in any way that wasn’t court ordered or wasn’t directly before signing with the Bruins. This isn’t about giving a kid a second chance. This is about a now adult not showing any real remorse or ownership about his disgusting actions. Bruins should be ashamed.
 

changer591

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Yea this is what it comes down to me. He doesn’t seem to actually be sorry or trying to improve himself in any way that wasn’t court ordered or wasn’t directly before signing with the Bruins. This isn’t about giving a kid a second chance. This is about a now adult not showing any real remorse or ownership about his disgusting actions. Bruins should be ashamed.
Tell me that you didn't read the article without saying you didn't read the article.
 

Obscure Name

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amfox1

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https://www.nhl.com/bruins/news/bruins-issue-update-on-mitchell-miller/c-337296694

BOSTON -
Bruins President Cam Neely announced today, November 6, that the Boston Bruins will part ways with Mitchell Miller.

Statement from Bruins President Cam Neely:

"Today the Boston Bruins have decided to part ways with Mitchell Miller, effective immediately.

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.

We are sorry that this decision has overshadowed the incredible work the members of our organization do to support diversity and inclusion efforts. We will continue to stand against bullying and racism in all of its forms.

To Isaiah and his family, my deepest apologies if this signing made you and other victims feel unseen and unheard. We apologize for the deep hurt and impact we have caused.

Finally, as a father, I think there is a lesson to be learned here for other young people. Be mindful of careless behaviors and going with the group mentality of hurting others. The repercussions can be felt for a lifetime."
 

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SoSH's Doug Neidermeyer
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Neely and Sweeney should both be gone for this.

What a dumb, dumb decision.

edit: not letting him go. Signing him in the first place.

Letting him go only makes signing him look even worse.
 

MiracleOfO2704

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Here’s hoping some of the media really put his feet to the fire for this. At best, this was poorly communicated, both to the team and the fans. At worst, they didn’t think anything of his history and figured enough time had passed that no one would notice.
 

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SoSH's Doug Neidermeyer
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I gotta say this, if this was all performance art to really hammer home to Mitchell how much bullying someone can hurt, and this was all a work to fuck with him, I may reconsider.
 

Haunted

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Is he really saying they thought it was one incident? Did no one even bother to Google the situation and read, like, any article?

I mean. Yikes?
 

Salem's Lot

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Unless he’s resigning, what could he possibly say? It’s either they bought the bullshit from the agent and didn’t vet him properly, or they did know and didn’t give a shit until the media & fans flipped out. Either way I don’t want him running the team anymore.
 

Rico Guapo

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Neely and Sweeney should both be gone for this.

What a dumb, dumb decision.

edit: not letting him go. Signing him in the first place.

Letting him go only makes signing him look even worse.
I agree they both should be gone for this, and I'll also agree letting him go only makes it look worse, but they had to know that before reversing course and they did so anyway in pursuit of doing the right thing which I think, in an ass backwards way, indicates some level of integrity.
 

Shaky Walton

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This was an incredible clusterfuck and blunder by the Bs.

But good that they finally got it right.
 

RIFan

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Organizational malpractice. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt that they had seen some evidence of attempted rehabilitation. They probably got the list of all the “work” he has been doing and took it at face value. They probably got played by the agent telling them he had other offers and they had to act fast. The lack of vetting is egregious. How do they not at least check in with Carnegie and the others to see if he showed up and seemed actually remorseful?
 

NickEsasky

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So they are either completely inept at doing any type of background search or they didn’t like the blow back and are just terrible liars. Either way, what an awful own goal by this front office. Neely looks like a clown.
 

Marciano490

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Oh man, Neely was my childhood hero. I met him as a mitey mite and got his autograph and only ever heard wonderful things about him.

But the fuck bro, you didn’t know the full story? I half remembered this asshole from reading about it here a few years ago and this isn’t even my day job. Like it’s 2022 Seabass, there’s an internet and shit you can use to find facts before spending money. Especially publicly. I spent more time getting these bath mats off Amazon.

If there’s karma, maybe the Bruins will hire a certain experienced inclusion officer…
 

Eddie Jurak

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Organizational malpractice. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt that they had seen some evidence of attempted rehabilitation. They probably got the list of all the “work” he has been doing and took it at face value. They probably got played by the agent telling them he had other offers and they had to act fast. The lack of vetting is egregious. How do they not at least check in with Carnegie and the others to see if he showed up and seemed actually remorseful?
Yep. Doing this signing and then immediately backtracking proves one thing: the Bruins approached this carelessly, without doing their due diligence. They ought to know better.
 

RIFan

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I suspect Bettman already knew of the bogus rehab work they were claiming when he made his comments about being ineligible.
 

j44thor

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This goes down as the most embarrassing 72 hours as a fan.
During the best start in franchise history. As much as I hated the signing I actually feel a tiny bit sad for Miller as this probably ends his chances at an NHL career. He likely wasn't deserving at this point but with proper mentorship perhaps he could have gotten there. Now it is going to be incredibly difficult.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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Not the organizations finest moment and they should have never signed this guy, but I think they recognized they made a mistake and fixed the situation, and it’s over. Shouldn’t have happened, but here we are. They did the right thing in the end. Hopefully they think the next situation like this through a bit better.

Calling for Neely or Sweeney’s head seems a bit much, to me. They took a gamble, a dumb one, but seemed to hear the response from all sides, loud and clear. Time to move on.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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Not the organizations finest moment and they should have never signed this guy, but I think they recognized they made a mistake and fixed the situation, and it’s over. Shouldn’t have happened, but here we are. They did the right thing in the end. Hopefully they think the next situation like this through a bit better.

Calling for Neely or Sweeney’s head seems a bit much, to me. They took a gamble, a dumb one, but seemed to hear the response from all sides, loud and clear. Time to move on.
Well assuming the contract was signed and presented to the league, they did just give the worst human being on the planet a huge amount of money; I don’t think the signing bonuses can be recouped.

So that sucks. Miller is getting a fortune out of this.
 

j44thor

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I hope Miller sues the B's for full payment of his contract and wins. You shouldn't be able to rescind a contract because of public backlash, esp when you openly admit you spent weeks vetting his character.
 

Salem's Lot

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Not the organizations finest moment and they should have never signed this guy, but I think they recognized they made a mistake and fixed the situation, and it’s over. Shouldn’t have happened, but here we are. They did the right thing in the end. Hopefully they think the next situation like this through a bit better.

Calling for Neely or Sweeney’s head seems a bit much, to me. They took a gamble, a dumb one, but seemed to hear the response from all sides, loud and clear. Time to move on.
I would fire them if I was the owner. They look like incompetent fools. Knowing Bruins ownership, I doubt they do anything.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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Well assuming the contract was signed and presented to the league, they did just give the worst human being on the planet a huge amount of money; I don’t think the signing bonuses can be recouped.

So that sucks. Miller is getting a fortune out of this.
Guess we will find out. In the grand scheme of things I doubt it’s a “huge amount of money” and surely one of the many other teams that were after him will sign him anyways, right?

But I’m sort of confused here. Seems like the consensus here was that this move was a mistake, now that the Bruins have dumped him, those responsible should be fired?

It was dumb and shouldn’t have happened but firing the GM and President over this seems like an overreaction. I don’t think they did anything unethical, it was just stupid.

Do we thing ownership wasn’t aware of the signing- is this not something they’d run up the chain?

I suspect the backlash from fans completely took them by surprise.
 

Cotillion

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If this press conference was as “good” as Sweeney was at the initial one, this story is far from over.
 

MiracleOfO2704

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Calling for Neely or Sweeney’s head seems a bit much, to me. They took a gamble, a dumb one, but seemed to hear the response from all sides, loud and clear. Time to move on.
Yeah, no. Taking a gamble would be picking up a player that has done some shitty things but was otherwise legally found not guilty. What we’re left with, especially with the “new information” line, is either the front office couldn’t be bothered to get an AGM or other assistant to vet O2K’s list of volunteer work (incompetence), or they didn’t really care and figured it’d been two years and the world must’ve forgotten. Either way, one of Neely and Sweeney should have their office in boxes on the Causeway St. curb tomorrow morning.
 

Myt1

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So, here are most of his statements, broken down. Even allowing for the fact that he’s certainly not a communications professional, I don’t have as positive a view on his statements as others. Part of that is the shitty writer. But I just don’t think he comes off well at all.

“At this point, I think the debt-to-society part is like 10 times more important than my hockey career,” he said. “Hockey would be a reward if I could ever have a second chance to have that back in my life, but I want to give back to the community.”
OK. So, what has he done?

Miller believes that he has taken several steps toward repaying his debt, beginning with when he apologized to Meyer-Crothers in the immediate aftermath of the incident. The apology was court-mandated, but it was a personal apology, and public records of Miller’s expulsion hearing and recommendation, obtained by azcoyotesinsider.com, show that the apology was read both to Meyer-Crothers, and to school officials and the school board. The apology was also sent to the Meyer-Crothers family.
So, for starters, a court ordered apology is, definitionally, not “in the immediate aftermath of the incident.” This seems to be the interested reporter carrying water for him, rather than puffery by Miller himself, but it’s nonsense.

Next, I mean, do we even give credit for a court-ordered apology? It’s not like he volunteered and did it on his own.

The court ruling prohibited Miller from having any further contact with Meyer-Crothers, and he said he abided by that ruling. More recently, when the new reports surfaced, he said he tried to add Isaiah as a friend on Snapchat, but “but I doubt he wants to add me back.”
OK. So, tried to add him on Snapchat.

“I obviously don’t know what he’s thinking in his head but I think it might be embarrassing for him. Maybe he is feeling down. Maybe he didn’t feel appreciated by his friends that were supposed to be there for him.”
This isn’t the only usage of the word “friends,”and it seems both completely incongruous as to the behavior at issue and the mother’s version of things. Yet Miller repeats the usage, such that it’s possibly a tell of coached behavior or self-interested narrative deflection that misrepresents both the scope of the bad conduct as well as the relationship between the two.

If he were to speak to Isaiah Meyer-Crothers again, here is what Miller said he would like to say.
“I would definitely apologize again; just tell him how sincere I am and how sorry I am that it affected his life,” he said. “If I could talk to him again I think we could be friends again. I wasn't allowed to talk to him, so I haven’t had the chance to apologize to him face-to-face, but I would like to catch up with him. We were good friends, so I’d like to see how he’s doing and what he’s been doing since eighth grade.
Again, “We we’re friends, and we could be friends again,” seems to badly misstate reality in which a Court gave you a stay away order and the kid’s mother says he’s emotionally traumatized and scarred. It’s possible that this is self-deception, but it feels worse than that.

“I kind of lost everything because of this, but it obviously affected their family way more.
Rhetorical primacy.

It affected them the most, but from my side, I have realized how much I lost, and it made me think about my life. I started seeing a counselor right after it all happened, and I still see a counselor when I go back home to figure out how to keep going and follow a dream. It goes both ways, but I think it helped me become a better person and become more mature.”
So, here’s how it affected him again. And he also sees a counselor now. So, we’re up to a court mandated apology and some counseling.

“Sitting with Mitchell, we told him, ‘Listen, this is not behavior that we will condone in our household, and you need to be a good person,’” Shelli Miller said. “These boys were always playing around,
So, yeah, it’s really difficult to see this as anything but clumsy narrative deflection/gaslighting. It’s not just Miller, here. It’s “these boys.” It’s “always playing around.” We can make an allowance that the guy writing this is bad at what he does, but, if Miller’s and his mom’s quotes are accurate, they’re very likely practiced and intended to minimize the problem as an unfortunate incident between good friends.

but he was in trouble for a very long time after we found out everything. My husband and I are pretty strict, but he also did everything above and beyond what was asked of him after the fact, so I think something really good is going to come out of this for him.”
OK, so what was the “above and beyond”?
Since the incident for which Miller and another teenager were charged with assault and violating the Ohio Safe Schools Act in February 2016, he completed his court-mandated 25 hours of community service which included working with the physically disabled (including the Special Olympics) and children of multiple ethnicities.
Court ordered 25 hours of community service.

That’s like . . . three weeks of being a Little League coach. It’s less time than some posters here have spent complaining about the 2015 draft. And it’s court-ordered.

So, what else?

He has also worked with a pair of counselors during the past five years.
When he was in Iowa playing for Cedar Rapids of the USHL, his coach, Mark Carlson said Miller was part of the team’s community outreach program, which included feeding the homeless, working with the elderly and taking part in a program that was germane to Miller’s earlier incident.
“Mitchell was a good team member when he was here,” Carlson said. “We do a lot of community service as part of our player development program. Mitchell was very involved in all aspects of our community service. There were certainly guys that did as much, but he was right there with those guys. He did a lot of community service. The team did take part in an anti-bullying program and Mitchell was a part of that.”
OK. So his former coach notes that he participated in what at first blush seems a lot like the Bruins going and visiting Children’s Hospital, right? What was the scope and time commitment? I have to think that, if it were truly substantial, the specifics would have been noted by one of the many interested parties. Given that they weren’t, this feels a lot like, “He went along on our soup kitchen and nursing home and high school visits.”

While Miller was at the University of North Dakota, he said he was working with teammate Jasper Weatherby in hopes of becoming a part of the school’s diversity training. Weatherby is a member of North Dakota's Student-Athlete Inclusion and Diversity Group, and he is the National Collegiate Hockey Conference's player representative for college hockey's social issues task force.
So, I have this thing about kitchen sink argumentation: when you pile on shitty arguments, it calls into question the credibility of your whole narrative. So what we have here is Miller “working with” a teammate who has a certain impressive sounding credential for borrowing, in the hopes of doing something that he didn’t actually do, because we certainly would have been told if he did.

Most recently, Miller has been focusing on his school work
:eyeroll:
while still visiting his old coach in Tri-City (USHL), Anthony Noreen, with whom he skates on occasion. COVID has made it more challenging for him to engage in community service, but he said he hopes to continue the work.
Continue what work, exactly?

Miller said he was prepared for a second wave of stories after he was drafted, but only to a point. He had sent a letter to every NHL team explaining the incident (azcoyotesinsider.com also obtained that letter) and what he had done in its aftermath.
Anyone got this letter? Because I see:
1. Court mandated apology;
2. Court mandated community service;
3. Participation in team community service at a rate similar to others; and
4. Seeing counselors.

“North Dakota told me they wouldn't drop me no matter what, but obviously the school has to protect itself, and the NHL teams and organizations have to protect themselves,” Miller said.
“North Dakota lied to me and protected themselves instead. NHL teams are protecting themselves as well.”

“I can’t get mad about that stuff. Once I got drafted in Arizona I was prepared for something to happen. We talked about it in eighth grade, that it was going to come back up eventually. It was just a dagger when it came out. It is obviously everyone’s dream to get drafted, so I guess I wasn't really prepared for all of what happened.”
Miller faces a difficult road back to hockey. Before the NHL Draft, Elite Prospects reached out to several NHL sources and found that numerous teams had left Miller off their draft boards. Here is an excerpt from a piece written by J.D. Burke, the site’s editor, explaining why Miller was excluded: “There is a commonly held view among everyone within this segment of the league that Miller’s camp hasn’t been forthright in addressing their off-the-ice concerns, and when they have, that Miller has not interviewed well.
So, I guess other people who interviewed him feel much the same way I do when I read this article written by someone who, admittedly, is doing Miller no favors.

Miller said that he embraced the idea of becoming a diversity spokesperson for the Coyotes when they first mentioned the idea after drafting him. He still hopes to play a similar role somewhere.
This article is super long on letting Miller try to take credit for stuff he never ended up doing.

“I hope to share my story with others of what happened to me and Isaiah, and I hope we can sit face to face and chat, maybe later in life,” he said. “From a hockey standpoint, I think I deserve a second chance to play again and I have learned from my mistakes, but it will definitely be a tough road. Even after eighth grade, it was tough going from there to play for different teams and explaining what I did and what I have learned.
Jesus, dude. Read the fucking room. Denial of agency (“what happened to me and Isaiah,”) and description of what he, Miller, had to suffer.

“They gave me second chances, all the way to college. I came to work every day for school and practice, and I tried to be a better person. I guess I got lucky after eighth grade to get those chances, but it has obviously gone back downhill from there. Hopefully, I do get another opportunity to make my way back up and make a positive story out of this.”
Obviously, I come at this stuff from a certain tradition and method and view it through a certain lens. But this really does not strike me as a good article for Miller.

Edit: And, apparently stuff happened as I was breaking this down. Viewing Newley’s statement charitably, it seems that the org was stupid/lazy/negligent enough to take Miller’s dishonest framing of the incident as accurate?!?
 
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Marciano490

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Guess we will find out. In the grand scheme of things I doubt it’s a “huge amount of money” and surely one of the many other teams that were after him will sign him anyways, right?

But I’m sort of confused here. Seems like the consensus here was that this move was a mistake, now that the Bruins have dumped him, those responsible should be fired?

It was dumb and shouldn’t have happened but firing the GM and President over this seems like an overreaction. I don’t think they did anything unethical, it was just stupid.

Do we thing ownership wasn’t aware of the signing- is this not something they’d run up the chain?

I suspect the backlash from fans completely took them by surprise.
It’s second chances all the way down.