Jeremy Jacobs needs to stay with the Boston Bruins.

Jun 11, 2013; Chicago, IL, USA; Boston Bruins head coach

(right) , general manager Peter Chiarelli (middle) and president

are interviewed during media day in preparation for game one of the 2013 Stanley Cup Final against the Chicago Blackhawks at the United Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports

I won’t lie here. The title took longer to write than the article.

I thought about this for a couple of hours when I first read the article that offered up the possibility that members of the Jacobs family were in line for the purchase of the Buffalo Bills. The positive and negatives literally danced through my head. Would Jacobs leaving be a good thing? If he handed over the reigns to his son (and alternate governor) Charlie, could we see a more enriched fan experience for the season ticket holders and the rest of us? (Currently, in the evaluation of all the perks given to season ticket holders, the Bruins rank a measly twenty-sixth overall.) How would the absence of the senior Jacobs affect the Bruins and their fan base?

There was a part of me that would exalt at the possibility of the ‘Montgomery Burns of Hockey’ leaving the NHL behind. He was the leader of the hard liner faction of the owners in the last lockout. Jacobs apparently put the kibosh on one or two negotiations that could have given the league (and more importantly) the fans a few extra weeks of hockey. He chose to further line his own pocket at the expense of the rest of us (with a net worth of three plus billion, you can see how that could irk). At the end of the last lockout, I was disappointed with the mea culpa Jacobs and the organization extended to the fans after the season started.

The most recent increase to the price of season tickets did not endear him to the fan base either.

The other part of me understood that while he may not be my favorite person, he was the driving force of the Bruins renaissance this last decade. Look a the picture above. The choices made by Jeremy Jacobs were crucial to the team’s development. He chose to make Cam Neely president of the organization, he approved the choices of Peter Chiarelli as general manager and Claude Julien as head coach. Without those three pieces in play, the Bruins outlook would be completely different.  Without those three key pieces, the Boston Bruins would look something more akin to the Florida Panthers or the Buffalo Sabres.

No, wait. Let’s go with the New York Islanders. No team ever deserves to be compared to the Buffalo Sabres.

While it rankles to say this, I’d rather have Jeremy Jacobs pulling the strings in the NHL then heading over to Buffalo and working his ‘magic’ in the National Football League. While he may not be our favorite choice as a person, he is an ideal choice as an owner of a team that has won it’s first cup in a generation and stands poised to do it again this June.