I think in some cases the vocal minority/non-vocal majority thing can be true, but reading this thread I don't feel like this is one of them.

I am not in the SMJHL GM discord, so I wasn't there to see the draft, but generally HO tags the next team to make their selection. HO would have tagged STL instead of COL in this case and STL would have made the pick. Placing the blame solely on the GMs is a mistake as the blame is really shared between two team's GMs, the user who manages the pick tracker and HO itself for not properly supervising this position. If we take this as an honest mistake by all 4 parties the simplest solution would be to give a future similar pick from STL to COL as compensation. If you feel like punishing the GMs on top of that maybe forfeit a late pick each, but I really do think this was an honest mistake on all parties.