Teenagers inherently fail to realize the consequences of their actions. They think of what their actions can provide for them now rather than the harmful effects they will have not only on themselves but on other people involved in their actions in the future. The present-day teenage culture is ravaged by this failure to recognize long-term consequences, especially amongst guys.
Nude-culture (I guess you can call it) is at probably its highest point ever amongst high schoolers. People fail to recognize that if they are caught in possession of that kind of stuff, they can go to jail and have major criminal consequences (I am not sure entirely what NJ law is on this because high schools SUCK at recognizing that this is a problem and explaining this to teens). Girls send revealing photos, guys save them, sometimes vice versa but not usually. Sometimes, girls are okay with the guy having the photo, most of the time they would prefer not. Either way, that photo is going to be seen by more than just one person, whether it is sent in a group chat or just shown to someone in person. Some people, like Mailloux, take it a little farther and take pictures in the act as a trophy to show off to his new teammates (that's really what a lot of this is about for some people, they think that having pictures like this will help increase their social standing and get more popular and accepted and stupid shit like that). I know asses who have stuff like this on their phones. I know way more completely normal, unassuming people who have this on their phones. I know people who have had their nude photos spread, and I have never seen one of them do anything about it until the Mailloux case because of a fear of more people (like their parents) knowing about it even though there is a crime quite literally being committed against them. Because of this, this culture will continue being perpetuated until more people like Mailloux get called out for it.
35% (maybe slightly more) of high school guys have probably had shit like this on their phone at some point, whether they got it themselves or from a friend sending it to them. I am not excusing any of them, I am simply pointing out a number based on my relatively recent experience in high school. I lived through this type of shit going on. No matter whether the person who had the pics was a complete shithead or an unassuming nice kid caught up in a shitty culture, the one thing they have in common is a failure to recognize the consequences of having this. Once these consequences are realized, people delete it off their phones and mature enough to understand how wrong what they did was and how lucky they are for not being caught. Some people realize relatively quickly, for some others, though, it takes a while to get it through their head, and some just never realize.
I have a different perspective than most people on this given that I am probably the youngest person on this board right now. I saw this culture happening around me and seemingly unassuming people falling victim to it left and right. Is Mailloux an ass? Maybe, but probably not. He just did a really stupid f***ing thing without using his brain and understanding the scope of his actions. So he absolutely deserves punishment. He should not get special treatment because of his standing as a hockey player, and from everything I have read, he seems to recognize that. He is cooperating with the family harmed, his team, other NHL teams, and the police. He let his story go public a week before the draft even though he didn't have to, turning nearly the entire hockey world against him, and I respect his decision to do that. His psych evaluation came back with seemingly positive results. Unlike a guy like Mitch Miller who couldn't even apologize to the kid he viciously bullied, Mailloux seems to be at least trying to cooperate with the family to make things somewhat right. And I guess the Mitch Miller case stands out to me a bit more because I have never heard of bullying ever get close to that bad in my school and in the neighboring schools that I knew kids at, whereas Mailloux's incident I see way too much of.
It's up to NHL teams to decide whether or not they want to draft him. I see why they wouldn't with the bad press they might get. I would not have drafted Mitch Miller last year. He seems like he might be a psychopath. I don't know if Mailloux is the ass or if he is the unassuming kid who didn't realize the consequences his actions might have. From what I have read about this incident, his psych evaluation, and my experience, he seems like a kid caught up trying to impress his new teammates and trying to fit in that he didn't recognize how wrong what he was doing was. He seems to show a willingness to learn and improve himself from this incident. I would give him a 2nd chance and draft him still so long as he interviews very well, but I would understand the hesitancy for some people.
