Bruins players celebrate Mitchell Miller's contract termination in dressing room after practice

Unless you decided to retreat from social media this past weekend, you've no doubt heard about the soap opera drama courtesy of the Boston Bruins.

The Bruins announced on Friday that they had signed former renounced NHL draft pick Mitchell Miller... only to walk that signing back on Sunday after MASSIVE backlash from fans, media and their own players. Miller, of course, has been accused and convicted of abusing a mentally handicapped boy that he went to high school with in 2016.

Miller was found delinquent in Ohio court on charges of assault and found guilty of bullying disabled African-American classmate Isaiah Meyer-Crothers. The real problem though, from my perspective, is that Miller doesn't appear to have shown any true remorse for his actions. He has filed a court-ordered apology and has completed his court-ordered community service, but the Meyer-Crothers family maintains that they have never received an apology and that Miller is not remorseful in the least. Miller's agent provided a list of non-profit initiatives that Miller has volunteered his time with, but most if not all of those organizations have refuted the agent's claims. In other words... there's not much evidence that Miller has learned his lesson at all. 

As a result, the Bruins released him just 48 hours into his contract.

While this isn't the first time that an NHL teams has been in the middle of a fan/media controversy before, this is the first real time that I can remember players outwardly protesting decisions made by their own team. Players like Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and Nick Foligno were all pretty outspoken in their disappointment over Miller's signing.

“I had my concerns,” Bergeron said after the signing announcement. “I shared my opinion. In a way, I was not necessarily agreeing with it. To be honest with you, the culture that we’ve built here goes against that type of behavior. We’re a team that’s built something about character, character people and individuals. What he did, obviously, is unacceptable. We don’t stand by that."

“It’s tough. It’s a really hard topic, said Nick Foligno. First and foremost, the organization is not going to do something that would jeopardize that. But in saying that, it’s not something anyone in this room stands for. The culture we’ve built and these guys have built before I got here is one of inclusion. 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 in 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."

Flash forward to today and Miller is no longer a member of the organization, meanwhile the Bruins are preparing for a game this evening against the St. Louis Blues. So... how are they pumping up for the game?

How apropo...