If there's two things that have made Toronto not a place that Mitch Marner is all that eager to keep playing in, it would be his original contract negotiation back in 2019, which he and his camp extended into training camp.
He signed after a day or two of missing camp that year. But that's when the fans started to turn on him.
And, you know, Mitch gave interviews at that time, said it was the first time he'd ever been yelled at.
He was walking his dog once, and some guy that summer was yelling like, «Why don't you have a contract?»
And people started talking a lot about his dad and what role his dad may or may not have played in those negotiations.
Mitch kind of bristled at his family being brought into it. And then on top of that, in the six years that followed, when the playoff success wasn't there, you know, a lot of it was aimed his way.
And I will say, much of it justified, but I'm aware of a few incidents that Mitch had to deal with, and there's probably more that I don't know about, where it bordered on harassment.