The Hockey Diversity Alliance is calling out the Boston Bruins for their handling of the Mitchell Miller signing, saying the organization lacked "human decency" by not reaching out to the family of Isaiah Meyer-Crothers, a young Black man who was bullied and assaulted by Miller when the two were classmates.
In a lengthy statement, the HDA said it has been working with Meyer-Crothers for two years — since the story first came to light in 2020 after the Arizona Coyotes drafted, then released, Miller.
The Bruins signed Miller to a contract on Friday but released him on Sunday following vocal criticism from within and outside the organization.
"If the Bruins had talked to the Meyer-Crothers family, their executives would have quickly recognized the contradictions and lies in the accounts from Miller and his representatives," the HDA said in its statement.
On Monday, team president Cam Neely admitted the team had "failed" to speak to the Meyer-Crothers family before completing the signing. That comment came after general manager Don Sweeney said he didn't "feel it was necessary at this point in time to hear both sides of the story." Instead, the organization asked Miller to reach out to Meyer-Crothers, which he did in a message sent over social media a week and a half before the signing, the family told The Athletic.
"The apology we got was because Boston said we’d sign him if he apologized," Jamie Crothers, Isaiah's father, told The Athletic. “That’s dead and shallow. That means nothing."
The HDA said Miller's agent, Eustace King, had contacted them to seek approval for the signing, which they did not grant.
In an interview with the Cam and Strick podcast, King said he had spoken to HDA founder Akim Aliu for 90 minutes but he did not reveal the contents of that conversation.
The HDA was co-founded by Aliu and other NHL players of colour in 2020 with the goal "to create sustainable change on all levels of hockey." Its board includes Nazem Kadri, Wayne Simmonds and Matt Dumba, among others.
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