As much as I don't like the team's initial statement, it's too simplistic to blame it on the PR folks alone. I work in the industry and have experience dealing with sensitive issues and crisis management. You make your recommendations to leadership but they almost always have influence on the final wording, as does legal in certain cases.
Dube's implication with the junior team was a known issue they would have been monitoring and should have considered when crafting their original statement, regardless of what the player told the team about his leave request.
Someone with the team thought it was a good idea to connect the statement to mental health vs. leaving it ambiguous. It's hard to know where the blame lies from the outside, but lots of people should have known better (and maybe some said so and were not listened to).
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