[Signing] Bruins sign Mitchell Miller UPDATE: Rescinded

[FlamesAddiction]

In a way, it seems kind of stupid for the court to make an apology part of a punishment. Don't get me wrong, an apology was definitely in order, but it is completely hollow if it is something being enforced and not something the person actually wanted to do. Even if it really was something the person wanted to do regardless, it will never be seen as a legitimate heartfelt apology because outside of that person, no one will know or believe that it was sincere. This isn't necessarily a statement about Miller specifically because I don't really want to give him the benefit of doubt, but just in general, it's dumb. It would be better to not mandate an apology just to see if the person really was sorry enough to actually make one on their own initiative.

[TheKiprusoffResurrection]

Well, this thread has been quite the ride! I'll leave my personal feelings on Miller aside for a moment, what I do find interesting is the narrative in this thread that playing the NHL is a "privilege" and that certain actions either can or should disqualify someone from said privilege.

I strongly disagree with that take. Maybe in a perfect world that's the way things SHOULD be, but it's not the reality we currently exist in.

NHL hockey, like all of pro sports, is a business and in order for your business to be successful in this particular sector, you need to win games. If a team believes a particular person can help their team win and said person is legally able to play for that team, that's really all there is to it. Of course team management has to consider things like dressing room suitability and fan impact before bringing in someone with a checkered past. But if we're being honest, NHL players aren't likely to blackball some guy because he has a history of bullying. And the fans, like management, really only care about winning.

Let's say the Bruins keep rolling, top of the league heading towards the playoffs, and they bring Miller up (obviously very unlikely this year, but I digress). Do you really think the rink would stop selling out? I don't. Fans of sporting teams around the world have proven they will support scumbags, if said scumbags can help their teams win.

Pro sports contacts aren't rewards for having lived good, decent and moral lives. They're simply given to people that are really good at sports. Miller very well may be a scumbag, but this narrative that he doesn't "deserve" an NHL contact is silly, imo.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

I don't understand people saying he never apologized. I mean he publicly apologized, there are quotes in stories where he's doing so unequivocally. Then there is an apparent court mandated apology which people seem to acknowledge he made. Yet I still see posts saying he has refused to apologize or doesn't think what he did warrants an apology. I cannot reconcile these things.

If you're saying he only apologized because he had to or it's not credible to you because he's trying to salvage a pro hockey career, that's a different argument, although it kind of eliminates the possibility of an apology in circumstances where someone is facing charges.

[Jiri Hrdina]

I think it’s a couple things
- he never personally apologized to the victim until most recently trying to reach out via instagram
- he refers to an incident while the victim says it was years of abuse

From an athletic article today

Miller didn’t personally apologize to Meyer-Crothers in 2016. He didn’t in 2020. He hadn’t last summer. And he hadn’t until, it seems, his conversations with the Bruins had started. Joni Meyer-Crothers told Guy Flaming of The Pipeline Show that Miller reached out to her son on Instagram recently to apologize while telling him that it “had nothing to do with hockey.” If there’s a road back for someone like Miller — from someone who’s done what he did — it doesn’t pass through this particular town. Restorative justice doesn’t end in the DMs, especially for someone seeking the privilege of playing pro sports.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Didn't he personally apologize after he was mandated to by the court, though? I dunno, this whole thing about "well, he apologized, but the parameters of the apology were not adequate to meet my personal standards" thing just reads to me as trying to find a justification for maintaining a vengeful attitude, like you need him to jump through some very specific hoops you've come up with that aren't really based on anything principled.

At its core, I don't think the debate is really about the quality or circumstances of an apology. The central dispute seems to be whether you think he actually is contrite and actually feels remorse for what he did, or you don't believe him about that. Seems like reasonable people can disagree about that, but there's an awful lot of personal admonition aimed at people just for falling on one side of that line or the other and it doesn't make a lot of sense from where I sit.

[Jiri Hrdina]

it depends on what you mean by personally apologize. The first time her reached out to the victim was as the Bruins were trying to sign him.
Causes doubt into the sincerity of that apology
This is a good column that I agree with. there are several others:
https://thehockeynews.com/news/hocke...-it-never-will

[jammies]

Reaching out on instagram, that to me is not an apology. Nor is writing a letter to the court that you've been told to write, and that is never passed on to your victim. I don't think discounting any apology other than one delivered in person to both the victim and his parents is unreasonable.

Maybe Miller is truly remorseful but is just too much of a coward to go and face the pain that he caused. I don't know. What I do know is that he isn't 14 anymore, and I think that's the problem with forgiving him, he has become an adult but he doesn't want to act like an adult and own his actions. He just wants to sweep them to the side, like a child.

There is definitely an issue with winning being more important than any other thing in pro sports, and unfortunately situations similar to this are going to keep occurring. Like some have said, it'll only ever change if the bottom line starts getting affected by fans quitting in disgust.

Lastly, Jay Random, you are conflating your situation with one that is not at all similar. If you had been drafted by a team in the NHL, no one would have called that team out because you kicked a garbage can when you were a young teen. Obviously you still harbor bitterness and resentment about it, but I think you are identifying with the wrong victim in this case.

Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using Tapatalk

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

it depends on what you mean by personally apologize. The first time her reached out to the victim was as the Bruins were trying to sign him.
Causes doubt into the sincerity of that apology
This is a good column that I agree with. there are several others:
https://thehockeynews.com/news/hocke...-it-never-will

This is the crux of it.

Miller's actions against Meyers-Crothers do not represent a case of youthful tomfoolery gone awry. They were calculated in their execution, rooted in the pursuit of deriving pleasure from the misfortune of a defenseless party. That Miller continues to downplay these crimes and attempt to sweep them under the rug -- his Bruins-sanctioned statement refers only to a singular incident for which he apologizes -- only further demonstrates his lack of remorse.

If it weren't a required step on his path to a professional hockey career, would Miller have ever apologized at all? No one can say for sure. But the evidence paints a clear picture.

If that is your picture of who Miller is, you are of course going to take the position that he has not paid adequately for what he did.

If you have a different view - that this was likely a ####ty kid who did ####ty things and now seems to recognize that what he did was awful, and is ashamed of it, then you might have a different view about what the consequences should be in the present day.

I dunno. I'm kind of in between. I definitely do not think it is very likely that this person is a sociopath who is utterly lacking in any remorse for what he did. I think he almost certainly deeply regrets it, and that that regret is rooted both in an understanding that his actions were totally deplorable and reflect his poor character, and also an understanding that this will follow him for life and has made his life more difficult. I don't think those feelings would be extricable, that's just how people are, especially teenagers, and he just turned 20. If that characterization is accurate, I think it would be reasonable to say that he has more work to do to personally deal with his past actions, which again is not surprising given his age - very few 20 year olds are equipped to do that. If you think certain career paths should be barred for him while he's engaged in that journey I guess that's a place to stand, though I'm not sure where the line is on that or how you could justify setting a line in a particular place.

All that being said, I don't know this dude. No one on this forum does. No one writing articles like the one you linked to does either, I assume. Maybe he really is, to this day, some form of evil, remorseless, racist villain. It's just weird to me that people want to assume that he is, rather than a relatively median, flawed human being who was a horrible prick as an adolescent and now has to deal with the fallout as he transitions to adulthood.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

All that being said, I don't know this dude. No one on this forum does. No one writing articles like the one you linked to does either, I assume. Maybe he really is, to this day, some form of evil, remorseless, racist villain. It's just weird to me that people want to assume that he is, rather than a relatively median, flawed human being who was a horrible prick as an adolescent and now has to deal with the fallout as he transitions to adulthood.

I think it really comes down to how likely you think it is that he’s still the horrible prick he was and, given the lack of ability to truly know (based especially on the fact that Miller hasn’t really done anything to sufficiently show he isn’t for anyone for who wasn’t already ready to assume he’d changed), whether you want to root for or against someone like that having a special opportunity. I think it’s maybe equally likely he still is, and think it’s stupid the Bruins signed him (from a PR perspective especially) but ultimately it is what it is.

And that’s why these conversations get so ridiculous. Nobody is campaigning the Bruins. Nobody here is writing into the NHL. People are simply saying “hey, this guy is a prick (or more common: I can’t yet believe this guy isn’t a prick because his apology sucks), this team is gross for signing him.” It’s not like anyone is going to stop watching the NHL, or uhhh, the Bruins? Or whatever.

So, while it’s weird to take a “he’s an evil villain who will never rehabilitate” stance, it’s also entirely weird to act like people want him to kill himself, or love the US prison system, or think he should work at McDonalds forever (like that’s somehow the only option outside of making millions in the NHL). We’re talking about a guy who did some heinous stuff and people’s first reaction was “anyone who doesn’t forgive him or thinks he’s still bad is actually garbage.”

Miller isn’t owed forgiveness or NHL fans. It’s weird to go after people for not giving them to him.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Oh, there have definitely been extreme reactions on both sides. That's why I'm saying it seems reasonable to me to stand on either side of "based on the statements I've read from him he seems to acknowledge his wrongdoing and seems contrite", and "My read of this guy is that he hasn't truly come to terms with how awful what he did was and his statements of contrition aren't convincing to me". But there are a lot of people in this thread taking some very personal shots from both sides of that line and that is I think baffling - how can anyone be so totally certain about their stance as to actually get into internet fights and attack other posters for their stance when they don't know this person?

Other than that I mostly agree with what you're saying, although I took the "work at McDonalds" thing to be a rhetorical effort to make the same point I was indicating - that if your position is that the consequences for these actions should be that he is never allowed to play in the NHL, how did you determine what that line was. That is, should he also be barred from AHL, or the ECHL, or where does it stop, and wherever it stops, what is the principled justification for choosing that particular stopping point.

[cannon7]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

I think it’s a couple things
- he never personally apologized to the victim until most recently trying to reach out via instagram
- he refers to an incident while the victim says it was years of abuse

From an athletic article today

Miller didn’t personally apologize to Meyer-Crothers in 2016. He didn’t in 2020. He hadn’t last summer. And he hadn’t until, it seems, his conversations with the Bruins had started. Joni Meyer-Crothers told Guy Flaming of The Pipeline Show that Miller reached out to her son on Instagram recently to apologize while telling him that it “had nothing to do with hockey.” If there’s a road back for someone like Miller — from someone who’s done what he did — it doesn’t pass through this particular town. Restorative justice doesn’t end in the DMs, especially for someone seeking the privilege of playing pro sports.

The Athletic is reporting something that is inconsistent with Ohio juvenile court record then. And falsifying court records is a crime.

Here's the letter that Ohio court record states Miller read to Isiah:



The only person keeping this story alive at this point is Joni Meyer-Crothers. Isaiah himself has said publicly that he doesn't want Miller to be punished further. Joni is the only one claiming Miller never apologized, contradicting an Ohio magistrate. She is the only one making public statements at this point.

[sureLoss]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1588934071870423042

https://twitter.com/user/status/1588933746878992384

https://twitter.com/user/status/1588934116959215616

[cannon7]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

it depends on what you mean by personally apologize. The first time her reached out to the victim was as the Bruins were trying to sign him.
Causes doubt into the sincerity of that apology
This is a good column that I agree with. there are several others:
https://thehockeynews.com/news/hocke...-it-never-will

That is an op ed and it asserts facts which are false. Miller, according to Ohio juvenile court record, read his apology aloud to Isiah and the school administrators in 2016. As did the other kid who also bullied Isiah, but we don't care about him because he didn't get drafted by an NHL team or signed to an NHL contract. See, we only want our pound of flesh for people in the public eye. We don't even know that other kid's name, because juveniles are typically shielded from these sorts of things.

The only source for the claim that Miller did not read his apology out loud to Isaiah is his adopted mother, Joni Meyer-Crothers. And she is also the only source for the claim that the magistrate didn't think Miller was remorseful. The magistrate has never publicly stated this. And if you search for this woman' s name in the local Sylvania, OH news, you'll see a whole different picture here.

[Jiri Hrdina]

The fact that in the letter he refers to him as a friend tells me he doesn’t get the severity of it
But we each judge this for ourselves.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

The fact that in the letter he refers to him as a friend tells me he doesn’t get the severity of it
But we each judge this for ourselves.

Or - and I know this is a radical thought here - it might be possible that your assessment of the situation (based on extremely limited facts) is not entirely accurate.

Just throwing that out there as an alternative.

[cannon7]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

The fact that in the letter he refers to him as a friend tells me he doesn’t get the severity of it
But we each judge this for ourselves.

If you have children, they have my pity.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

There is definitely a perfectly valid reading of that letter that says he doesn't get it or is deluding himself or otherwise isn't willing to face up to just how bad what he did was, certainly... a "funny prank that got bigger", "sometimes horse playing", minimizes a pattern of bullying over a period of years. So it's not unreasonable for his mom to say that apology isn't satisfactory and doesn't reflect real remorse.

But it still feels like we're attempting to conduct a forensic analysis about someone's feelings through press statements, and in that context statements like this about someone who is reading those press statements differently from you are, from where I sit, completely insane.

Originally Posted by cannon7

If you have children, they have my pity.

[Inglewood Jack]

Foligno had some strong words about this signing on behalf of his teammates. He’s not going to play in the NHL, go ahead and put money on it.

[cannon7]

More context regarding Joni Meyer-Crothers...

Mom of bullied teen accuses district of lying after seeing video surveillance

And four months after the incident...

Police investigate alleged assault at Pacesetter Park

Sylvania soccer dad charged with assault

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by sureLoss

https://twitter.com/user/status/1588934071870423042

https://twitter.com/user/status/1588933746878992384

https://twitter.com/user/status/1588934116959215616

This kid better make Adam Fox look like Chris Butler or else I have no idea why you’d bring this sort of headache to your historic franchise. A franchise who’s in the middle of “one last run” with most of their current legends. Insane.