Last week, the Boston Bruins' most loyal fans, their season ticket holders, were given a complimentary tour of an empty Bruins locker room, and were even allowed to take a photo with the 2011 Stanley Cup banner. During their tour of a locker room that's been devoid of B's players since April, without any of the B's equipment in any of the stalls, the sad reality set it that this would perhaps be their only trip of what was supposed to be at least 43 non-refundable trips to the Garden this year.
That's one pricey arena tour.
They, like everyone involved in this absolute ridiculous affair, deserve a much better fate for their devotion to their team and to this game in money, trust, and passion.
However, that's unfortunately not the case, and there's nobody that appears to be truly blameless in this arduous battle that's left even the most devout NHL supporter with a scar that may never heal.
How are we here again? Better yet,
why are we here again?
It almost doesn't seem right. No, screw that, it's not right.
But just who's driving the bus behind the league's second lockout in less than ten years? Some say it's
Gary Bettman, who’s now commissioned this league to three lockouts in two decades, a feat that seems borderline impossible for any somewhat competent employee, especially one at such a high level, involved with a major league sport. Rather than lambasting ‘Commish Gary’, others point to the posturing and game of proposal-chicken played by the NHLPA's
Don Fehr. But what about the owners, a group of millionaires, strike that -- billionaires, that are typically wealthy from anything but owning a hockey team, that continue to look for concessions from a group of players that are the third lowest paid in comparison to the other 'big three' of North American sports.
While the NHL's average salary of $2.2 million is more than enough to get any of us Danny Regular's to suit up for a game we love, the thought of taking steps back on a payscale make absolutely no sense for a league that's raved about their record revenues for what's felt like five years straight. It's nonsensical, in fact. Yet, here we are, and it only seems fitting that notorious villain of the public eye, B's owner
Jeremy Jacobs, is sitting as the alleged captain of NHL suits that have kept the ice covered. Alleged? Check that, it’s a fact if the meetings are going the way Comcast Sportsnet New England’s Joe Haggerty suggested in slice-and-dice column of the B’s owner from last week.
From
CSNNE:
Winnipeg Jets representation at a recent NHL Board of Governors meeting piped up to say it was opposed to engaging in a long, bloody lockout sure to stymie their franchise’s momentum and hurt the game of hockey.
It wasn’t Winnipeg owner Mark Chipman, but rather one of the alternate governors representing the Jets.
Bruins Principal Owner and Chairman of the Board of Governors Jeremy Jacobs answered by reprimanding the Winnipeg representative as one of the “new kids on the block” and informed him that he would know when he was allowed to speak in the NHL board room.
Hey, so that’s kinda like a jerk thing to do to a guy on your side, but movin’ on...
Jacobs, as I don’t have to tell you, is not hurting for money. As a tour of the refurbished Garden will tell you, headlined by upgrades to the (locked) B's equipment and locker room will show, the money's flowing just fine. But hey, that's just what happens when you own concessions in both Buffalo and Boston, and rent your building out to the always competitive Boston Celtics. In essence, Jeremy Jacobs should not be crying poor. Actually, he can't cry poor and his act, role in this entire ordeal stinks, and everybody knows it.
“I'm more upset with a guy like Jacobs," Phoenix Coyotes' toughguy
Paul Bissonnette said in an interview with Sirius XM Home Ice two weeks ago. "It just sounds so hypocritical for him to think the last CBA was so awful and how garbage it was, and then go out and sign three of his top guys right before the last one expired. If it was that bad, why rush to sign those guys?"
Referencing September contract extensions for
Brad Marchand (Four years, $18 million),
Tyler Seguin (Six years, $34.5 million), and the CBA buzzer-beating
Milan Lucic (Three years, $18 million) deal, contracts worth a combined $70.5 million, Bissonnette's comments and willingness to put the spotlight on Jacobs isn't a rarity in what's become an over two-month lockout that's created a toxic mix of apathy and anger from some of the game’s most outspoken players.
Something not-so-subtly expressed by Ranger-turned-Canadien
Brandon Prust during a heated tweet exchange with TSN’s Darren Dreger a few weeks back.
Well, there’s an opinion.
Now, is Jacobs the driving force behind the lockout? Well, according to some involved in the dictatorship, I mean negotiations, he’s certainly not helping, but everything to this point has been complete hearsay. That’s to be expected with strict fines for any owner that talks about the lockout, and despite being undeniable believable, it simply can’t be the sole reason for a work stoppage, can it?
I really, honestly do not know, and I don’t think anybody does.
In a perfect world, we’re back to watching NHL hockey at
some point this year, but this isn’t a discussion that pertains to that just yet, but rather towards the future. I’m, of course, entertaining the possibility that Boston becomes an undesirable place for free agents and the like given the perceived role of one Jeremy Jacobs throughout this infuriating ordeal. Surely Boston, a team loaded with a potent mix of veterans and rising youngsters, couldn’t be on somebody’s “No way” list, right? You’d seem stupid not to go to a club like the Bruins, who have committed to a contend-every-year philosophy after seeing what a few years of rebuilding did to a notoriously prideful fanbase. These points, while incredibly valid, downplay one of the biggest, if not thee biggest, point in all of this: Hockey players are just as prideful of their game, career, and how they approach the business side of this sport. That’s what a near three-month long lockout has shown us, and with a six-versus-six meeting tomorrow, featuring six NHL players and six NHL owners, Jacobs included, it’s another battle that’ll likely end with more people talking about the Grinch-esque ways of the despised B’s owner.
“If it’s (Boston Bruins’ owner) Jeremy Jacobs in there spewing his stuff, I don’t think it’s going to move this process forward,” Jets’ captain
Andrew Ladd told the
Winnipeg Free Press last week, before talk of the players/owners only meeting even began. Shockingly, it appears that many people around the league do not care for Mr. Jacobs, and it’s not exactly hard to see why. He’s the Ebeneezer Scrooge of the NHL, the villain tying the fans down to the railroad tracks, and may in fact be holding his own club back.
However, contrary to what you’ve been spoon-fed for years, Jacobs, while stingy, hasn’t been cheap when it comes to allowing his front office to make the moves they felt necessary to win, and it’s shown during
Peter Chiarelli’s tenure as the general manager of the Black-and-Gold. Told that he was essentially “free to spend” since the rebuild of almost seven years ago ended, the B’s have always been close to the league’s (insert monetary figure here) salary cap, but have rarely gone outside of the box when it comes to bringing outsiders in.
Looking over the clubs that PC and company have assembled since the start of the 2008-09 season, it’s been a clear trade-or-development philosophy that’s made up your average Bruins roster on a yearly basis. Since the summer of ‘08, the Bruins have signed just seven skaters via the unrestricted free agent market, with
Michael Ryder’s three-year, $12 million pact in the summer of ‘08 coming as the club’s biggest signing of all. But behind Ryder, depth or low-risk signings like
Stephane Yelle (2008-09),
Steve Begin and
Miroslav Satan (2009-10), and
Benoit Pouliot (2011-12) have made up most of the Bruins’ additions. There hasn’t been a top-six forward added to the roster by way of free agency, but rather through trades (
Nathan Horton in 2010, in particular) and a commitment to developing through the draft, with guys like
Patrice Bergeron,
David Krejci, Lucic, Marchand, and Seguin all working their way up through the B’s system in one way or another, but has that been by design or through an inability to attract guys to the Hub ‘cause of the organization's head honcho?
An interesting '11 offseason that saw Boston retain all their free agents rather than test the outside market for replacements, with spare parts such as Pouliot,
Joe Corvo, and late-season acquisitions
Mike Mottau,
Brian Rolston,
Greg Zanon, and goaltender
Marty Turco counting as the only real losses, could indicate such being the case, but it's truly impossible say. As we should all remember, money talks far more than owner-analysis ever could, but it’s certainly something to remember next time the B’s miss out on a key free agent.
Whenever that may be.
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