The Boston Bruins had their final official press conference of the 2015-16 season. Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs was part of the today’s press event, and he expressed his disappointment in how the B’s did this year. He acknowledged that the Bruins failed to make the playoffs for the second straight year. While all of this wasn’t exactly new to the fans, the elder statesman of the Bruins did felt like he should address the frustrations of the fans.
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“We are a cap team and there should be expectations in an Original Six market that we continue to be a playoff contender, and frankly, a Stanley Cup contender,” said Charlie Jacobs. “Given the mix of talent that we currently have on the roster and the youth that’s coming in, Cam’s aware of those expectations, as is Don.”
Now, he’s hoping the Bruins young talent pool (which did show some sparks in the second half of the season) will help the team move forward.
“I look forward to the next generation of players here,” said Mr. Jacobs. “This is a young man’s business and we have to understand that we have to make space for them. It will be exciting.”
“That is always an interesting process,” said Mr. Jacobs. “ Marchand, where we were sitting up, watching him and having the brain trust saying he’s not big enough, he’s not this, only to see him become a tremendous player — that was a real plus. And then you see some that don’t perform up to what expectations are.”
“But we’ve got a great pool now, and that was an investment that Don was very well aware of because that was an area that he functioned very much in, so it’s good to see him and see him be able to bring players in and Claude happy to evolve them and deal with them, and put them into position.”
Hopefully, Cam and Don will continue to push Claude Julien into developing the younger players. If that doesn’t work, they can always move a veteran or two so Julien has no choice but to play them every night.
In the end, the Bruins owner (and current head of the NHL’s Board of Governors) knew that his team had let the fans down (again). He understood their disappointment and promised things would be better. He also acknowledged the passionate fan base and how he knew they deserved more from the team.
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“The fan base is unbelievable. You know it. I know it,” said Mr. Jacobs. “I think that you get stimulated by those around you that succeed. We haven’t seen anything succeed like the Patriots have and they’ve been tremendous. What happened in baseball hadn’t happened for 80 years or whatever it was — they look like the Bruins on steroids that way, we went 35-40 years without winning the Cup.”
“This has been a great environment to be in, a great sports environment. When I go around the country, I was out in Los Angeles and they say, ‘We’d like to be like Boston. We’d like to look like Boston,’ in regard to the fan commitment.”
“We’ve got tremendous fans and I hate disappointing them.”
Hopefully, Bruins tickets will go down a bit to reflect that. (Likely not.) In lieu of that , maybe Jacobs could cut back on the nine dollar beers and the near twenty dollar cost for loaded potato chips at the TD Garden.