Opinion | The Bruins’ Mitchell Miller mistake is the last thing hockey needs

Acid test, litmus test, scratch-and-sniff test.

Any way you assay it, the elemental composition of the Maple Leafs was bound to be deciphered by rubbing up against the formidable Boston Bruins, a team that arrived in town riding a seven-win barrelling wave and 10-1-0 record.

A tsunami of controversy too, after the club on Friday signed 20-year-old defenceman Mitchell Miller to an entry-level contract.

Drafted in 2020 by Arizona, Miller was subsequently released after reports surfaced of his teenage conviction for bullying a Black classmate with developmental disabilities. Both were 14 at the time and Miller pleaded guilty to one count of assault. He and another teen had been accused of tricking the boy into eating candy they’d wiped against a bathroom urinal. Surveillance video also showed them kicking and punching the youth.

Commissioner Gary Bettman weighed in Saturday on the heels of an instant backlash, emphasizing that Miller is not currently NHL eligible and may never be. Miller has reported to the Bruins’ AHL team in Providence.

Before the Leafs took on the Bruins, the first step in a three-game crucible over four nights against top-notch opponents, the game suffered another black eye courtesy of a tone-deaf Boston front office. Not simply because Miller has been taken under their wing, albeit in the minors at this point, but in how they went about it — never speaking to the victim, most crucially, and whistling past the graveyard of public opinion.

Which isn’t to say that a repentant Miller doesn’t deserve a second chance after his youthful misconduct. Everybody is entitled to redemption and forgiveness, especially an adolescent. In Canada, that’s what the Youth Criminal Justice Act is all about — to get young lives back on track, so they aren’t burdened by their wrongdoing for a lifetime.

Playing professional sports, though, is a privilege not a right, and guided by league protocols.

After the Black Lives Movement gained ascendancy in the wake of George Floyd’s death by cop, the NHL — predominantly a white man’s game — announced a series of initiatives to “combat racism and accelerate inclusion,” which encompassed mandatory diversity training for all league employees.

This was, after all, a sport where a player was suspended from the ECHL in January for making a racist gesture at Jordan Subban, brother of P.K. Subban. Where an AHL player was suspended for making a racist gesture toward Boko Imama in the same month. Where a few years ago, four Chicago Blackhawks fans were ejected from the United Center for chanting racist taunts at Washington Capitals forward Devante Smith-Pelly. Where in 2019, Calgary Flames coach Bill Peters resigned after former player Akim Aliu disclosed Peters had used a racial epithet against him in the AHL a decade earlier. Where a Black bantam hockey player in Gatineau, Que. revealed this past March that he’d been targeted with racial slurs and intimidation all season, compared to jungle animals and hit with the N-word.

Where a banana was once thrown by a spectator at Wayne Simmonds — who lined up for the Leafs on Saturday night at Scotiabank Arena — during an exhibition game when he was with the Philadelphia Flyers.

These are not necessarily the isolated incidents we’d all prefer to believe.

As has become abundantly clear, hockey has a culture problem that reflects the wider societal scourge of racism — and sexual misbehaviour, but that’s a subject for another day.

The aforementioned Aliu weighed in Friday on Twitter: “Nothing says ‘NHL Culture’ like a co-ordinated Instagram apology by Mitchell Miller to ‘rehabilitate’ him back to the league after victimizing & torturing someone for their race & disability for years. Every aspect of this is unsettling …”

According to NHL statistics disclosed in June, the league had only 54 active players who identified as Arab, Asian, Black, Latino or Indigenous — roughly seven per cent. They’re a minority within a minority of advantaged athletes at the highest pro level.

What Aliu was referencing on social media was the shockingly slack character-digging investigative approach Boston’s brain trust has taken to independently assess the harm Miller caused a tormented boy and the sincerity of Miller’s remorse — a process that didn’t involve direct consultation with the victim. Indeed, Miller’s apologia seems to have extended no farther than that co-ordinated Instagram post, more than a week before the signing and many years after the fact.

“When I was in eighth grade I made an extremely poor decision and acted very immaturely. I bullied one of my classmates. I deeply regret the incident and have apologized to the individual. Since the incident I have come to better understand the far-reaching consequences of my actions that I failed to recognize nearly seven years ago. I strive to be a better person and positively contribute to society.”

The victim’s mother told CBS that Miller’s apology came only via Instagram, apart from the court-mandated apology he delivered at trial. That’s profoundly not good enough. On “The Pipeline Show,” the mother shared further details from a public text exchange: “(To) be clear, it wasn’t one incident as he keeps referring to — it is years and years and years of torture!”

Meanwhile, Bruins general manager Don Sweeney, in a Zoom session with reporters, expressed angst over the decision, admitting it could ultimately prove to be the wrong one. “I am not going to downplay that this has been a personal struggle as well as a professional struggle as we go through and try to separate the hockey player and person, spending quite a bit of time with Mitchell in particular over the last 10 days.”

Yet nowhere in that time frame was there room for reaching out to the victim?

Sweeney may be a merciful executive, but he’s dropped his team into a hellstorm scandal with players having to answer for a hockey operations gambit. Because the Bruins have historically leaned in hard to their identifying culture. To their credit, leadership players on Saturday were forthright about their doubts and misgivings.

Captain Patrice Bergeron explained that he was asked by Sweeney for his views last week: “I had my concerns. I shared my opinion. I was not necessarily agreeing with it. To be honest, the culture that we’ve built here goes against that type of behaviour … What (Miller) did is obviously unacceptable. For myself, in this locker room we’re all about inclusion, diversity, respect … We expect guys who wear this jersey to be high-character people.

“Truthfully, hopefully there’s some growth and change. If it’s the same 14-year-old that would be walking into this locker room, he wouldn’t be accepted in this locker room, to be honest.”

From Brad Marchand: “We have a culture in this organization, in this room. We obviously don’t condone what happened. That will never be part of our team and our organization.”

Miller, Marchand continued, has been given a chance at atonement because he’s purportedly undergone a character adjustment, agreeing to an educational and community path away from his toxic past. But “it’s going to be a very long process for him. And that’s on him …”

And from ex-Leaf Nick Foligno: “It’s not something that anyone in this room stands for. The culture that we’ve built, that these guys have built before I got here, is one of inclusion and I think it goes against that. I understand he was 14 when he made this mistake. But it’s hard for us to swallow because we take a lot of pride in here — the way we act, the way we carry ourselves, what it is to be a Bruin.

“So that was a tough thing to hear for our group, I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t think any guys were too happy.”

That is Boston’s acid test as a team. And heartburn for the franchise.

Rosie DiManno is a Toronto-based columnist covering sports and current affairs for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @rdimanno

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