Monday FTB: What was Boston thinking?

I don’t want to write that much about the Boston Bruins and the way they handled Mitchell Miller. There’s been plenty of much better writers who covered a lot more information than I could even remember to include.

What I do want to know is... what the hell were the Bruins thinking?

Let’s run through a quick TL;DR of everything they did wrong, I mean beyond the foundational error of signing him in the first place.

Did not talk to the victim’s family, not even to verify that he did actually apologize to the victim
Did not talk to the NHL to make sure they’d be okay with it
Did not talk to the victim’s family, not even to verify that he did actually apologize to the victim
Did not talk/listen to their own players how they felt about it
Did not talk to the victim’s family, not even to verify that he did actually apologize to the victim
Did not properly research the full scope of the past allegations and reporting of what Miller did to the victim for many years, including what he kept doing after he was found guilty of it in court/

And the above is something they may have known BUT THEY DID NOT TALK TO THE VICTIM’S FAMILY NOT EVEN TO VERIFY THAT HE DID ACTUALLY APOLOGIZE TO THE VICTIM. I cannot stress enough how just... unabashedly stupid, shameless, and unnecessary all of what they did was, if they had just ever bothered to talk to the family. In fact, as of writing this at midnight last night, THEY STILL HAD NOT ONCE REACHED OUT TO THE VICTIM’S FAMILY TO TALK TO THEM.

I’m sure we’ll hear some more stories from insiders and reporters about what the hell was and is going on within the Bruins management. This kind of PR nightmare was handled about as badly as it could have been, and may be such a blemish that people lose their jobs because of it.