The Rangers’ Zoom Q&A with newly signed prospect K’Andre Miller went horribly wrong Friday when the chat was hacked and a racial slur was written hundreds of times.
Miller, the Rangers’ 22nd-overall pick in 2018, was participating in the team’s “Future Fridays” series on Twitter that invited the first 500 fans who clicked on the Twitter link to listen in on the interview. Sometime during the Q&A, the n-word was repeatedly typed out across the chat screen.
It’s unknown if Miller, an African-American, saw the derogatory message, but the Wisconsin product finished the interview.
“We held an online video chat with fans and New York Rangers prospect K’Andre Miller, during which a vile individual hijacked the chat to post racial slurs, which we disabled as soon as possible,” the Rangers, who disabled the chat within 17 seconds, said in a statement. “We were incredibly appalled by this behavior, which has no place online, on the ice, or anywhere, and we are investigating the matter.”
Submit your Rangers questions here to be answered in an upcoming Post mailbag
The NHL also condemned the actions in a statement, saying, “No one deserves to be subjected to such ugly treatment and it will not be tolerated in our League.”
The FBI recently issued a statement that there have been multiple reports of hacking during Zoom meetings, which many have resorted to in order to communicate amid the global coronavirus pandemic. There have been several cases of conferences “being disrupted by pornographic and/or hate images and threatening language,” according to a warning from the FBI’s Boston division.
Many NHL players have participated in Zoom meetings that have been released for fan entertainment.
Miller signed a three-year, $3.825 million contract with the Rangers just one day before the league announced it was suspending the 2019-20 season due to the coronavirus. The deal kicks in during the 2020-21 season.