New York Rangers: Disgusting, racist nonsense on a live chat

The New York Rangers arranged for a live Zoom chat with prospect K’Andre Miller and during the conversation, someone hacked the chat and inserted a repeated racial slur.

In a laudable attempt to engage their fans, the New York Rangers set up a live chat for the first 500 users with recently signed prospect K’Andre Miller. They used the popular Zoom platform, a system that has gained enormous usage due to the Covid-19 pandemic.  Thousands of schools, businesses and individuals are using Zoom to communicate

After the chat began someone hacked into it and as Miller was being asked a question, a racial slur was displayed hundreds of times.  He clearly saw it and ignored it, answering the question about quarantine.

It took the Rangers organization four hours to post a statement.

A hack like that is meant to draw attention, so we won’t provide any more information about it except to condemn the individual who did this.  It was despicable and doesn’t represent the thousands of Rangers fans who we know join us in expressing outrage towards this behavior.

What is concerning and needs some attention are the comments on social media.  Most of the comments are to be commended for expressing outrage and condemning the hack.  There are some who  are angry that it took the team four hours to come up with the statement condemning the hack.  What’s disheartening is that some users took the opportunity to level charges of racism at some current Rangers and Miller’s future teammates, specifically Tony DeAngelo and Brendan Lemieux.   That needs to stop.

To accuse anyone of racism is just wrong especially when there is no evidence that there is a shred of truth to it.  We wrote extensively about DeAngelo’s history in a story last May and he has been a solid citizen in his time as a New York Ranger.   Click below to read it.

As for Lemieux, he has never been associated with a hint of any behavior of that kind and to accuse him of that is simply ridiculous.

It’s a disgrace that racism still exists at all and the hockey world has made a strong effort to stop any kind of discrimination.  This season, Calgary coach Bill Peters lost his job when reports surfaced that he had made racist remarks when a coach in junior hockey.  Hockey Night in Canada commentator Don Cherry was fired when he made derogatory comments about immigrants.  Toronto coach Mike Babcock was terminated when it was learned that he had engaged in bullying behavior towards some of his players.   With all of these actions, the NHL is making it clear that there is no place for discrimination of any kind.

The shame is that the Rangers were trying to make one of their future stars more accessible to fans.  It’s unfortunate that they used Zoom, a platform that has been hacked repeatedly.  Just this week New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced an investigation into security concerns and has since been joined by the state of Connecticut.  The Boston FBI office is also investigating reports of Zoom hacking.

Did it take too long for the Rangers to respond?  Four hours is an awful long time, but with the difficulties we are encountering in conducting our daily lives these days, I would give them the benefit of the doubt.

Meanwhile some Rangers were quick to make their feelings known.

To K’Andre Miller, all we can do is apologize for the behavior of others and ask that real New York Rangers fans not be judged by the insensitive actions of a racist lout.  And to Tony DeAngelo and Brendan Lemieux all we can say is ignore the noise, it’s nonsense.