It's nice that Charlie Jacobs feels Bruins fans' pain, but that's not nearly enough

New York Times

18-04-2025

BOSTON — Plenty of meaningful skating has taken place at TD Garden this year. The groundbreaking 4 Nations Face-Off final. The Beanpot. The Hockey East tourney. The high school tourneys. The World Figure Skating Championships.
What's missing from this list? You know the answer to that question: The Boston Bruins. It's been a long time since the Bruins have played much in the way of meaningful hockey, unless you count their 'Centennial Game' against the Montreal Canadiens on Dec. 1. We can all agree it was a grand night across the boards for the Bruins: They roared to a 6-3 victory on the 100th anniversary of their first game in the NHL, a 2-1 win over the Montreal Maroons on Dec. 1, 1924, at Boston Arena. Stick tap to Thomas 'Smokey' Harris for scoring the first goal in Bruins history.
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But just as the 1924-25 Bruins didn't qualify for the playoffs, neither did the 2024-25 Bruins. How bad was this latest edition of the Bruins? Their 32-39-9 record included a coaching change and a trade deadline housecleaning that sent Brad Marchand, the last remaining Bruin from the 2011 Stanley Cup champions, to the Florida Panthers. The Bruins lost 10 straight games as the season was mercifully winding down.
Here's something else that connects the 2024-25 TD Garden Bruins and the 1924-25 Boston Arena Bruins: Ownership believes things are going to be just fine.
Back then, it was Charles Adams, founding owner of the Bruins. Sportswriter John J. Hallahan spoke with Adams at the end of the 1925 season and filed this report for The Boston Globe: '(Adams) says that in another year he will give Boston a team that will be in the thickest of the fight, and expresses appreciation to the fans who supported the team.'
One hundred years later, we have Charlie Jacobs, CEO of the Bruins and son of longtime owner/chairman Jeremy Jacobs, crafting a letter that was sent to B's fans. The big takeaway, as has already been widely discussed, is Charlie Jacobs' belief that 'expectations and accountability are higher than ever.'
The only real accountability that seems to be going on with the Bruins these days is with the coach. The track record in recent years is that the blame pie is a single serving that's been delivered to Claude Julien, followed by Bruce Cassidy (who has since won a Stanley Cup with the Vegas Golden Knights), followed by Jim Montgomery, who was fired by the Bruins in November and was quickly hired by the St. Louis Blues. Monty's Blues are in the Stanley Cup tourney, with Game 1 of an opening-round series against the Winnipeg Jets set for Saturday night.
As for Bruins president Cam Neely and general manager Don Sweeney, they will be seated with Jacobs at the team's annual end-of-season news conference Wednesday at the Garden.
🎥 Coach Sacco reflects after the #NHLBruins season: "Over a decade here being part of a great organization. The Bruins have treated me very well…to be in the same place for that long, I'm pretty fortunate."
Complete end-of-season media sessions ➡️ https://t.co/Lre0GaOsRB pic.twitter.com/vQjTkd1lvs
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) April 17, 2025
I'm not here to rant for Neely and/or Sweeney to be escorted off the premises. What's bothersome about the letter — and give me some rope here — is the suggestion that Charlie Jacobs is just another townie who wants to see the Bruins win.
'I'm incredibly proud to be a Bostonian,' Jacobs writes. 'I take even greater pride in being a Boston Bruin. Together with leadership, we are embarking on an ambitious journey to restore glory to this great franchise.'
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In fairness to Jacobs, he has lived in Boston for a long, long time. Though born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., which is his family's base, he went to Boston College and later settled in the area to raise his family. He's the absentee owner's son, but he's present and accounted for in the Boston community. His name is attached to several charitable endeavors in Boston. According to the Bruins' website, he is the founder and chairman of the Boston Bruins Foundation, 'whose mission is to assist charitable organizations that demonstrate a commitment to enhancing the quality of life for children and families throughout New England.'
The betting here is that Jacobs knows a couple of good sub shops around town, and maybe a neighborhood bar where everybody knows your name.
It's the context that's all wrong. Bruins fans are rightly worked up about the way this season played out. And whether you want to call it a 'rebuild' or a 'retooling' (the latter being no more than a rebuilding's euphemistic cousin), the customers are concerned about the future.
To borrow from the iconic folk song that was popularized by The Kingston Trio, the CEO of the Boston Bruins is Charlie Jacobs, not Charlie on the MTA. He's not some grown-up kid from Inman Square who knew how to sneak into the old Garden. He didn't see the Boston Braves of the AHL, or the New England Whalers of the WHA. He's seen Bobby Orr on Level 4, but not on top of Pat Quinn.
Now it's not necessary for Jacobs to have been any of those things. But for the purposes of this discussion, it's not a good sell for ownership to pretend to be one of you. The late Tommy McVie, a hockey lifer who had a long tenure with the Bruins as an assistant coach, AHL coach, scout and ambassador, was fond of saying, 'If you start thinking like the fans, you'll soon be sitting with them.' McVie was a coach, and he had coaching in mind whenever he'd roll out that line. But it works just as well with the front office and with owners. In this case, Charlie Jacobs.
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The Bruins have not been a complete disaster over the years. They've been competitive more often than not. But if the ultimate goal is to win the Stanley Cup, the sobering reality is that the Bruins have brought the Big Goblet to Boston just once since 1972. Yes, they came close in 2013 and 2019. Alas, there is no second-place Stanley Cup unless you count the Prince of Wales Trophy, which nobody does.
While we're on the topic, can we please stop with the revisionist history that the Jacobs family would have no Stanley Cup titles were it not for the otherworldly goaltending of Tim Thomas in spring 2011? No doubt about it: Thomas stood on his head. His stick save against the Tampa Bay Lightning's Steve Downie in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals is the finest net thievery these eyes have seen. But to suggest it was all Thomas is disrespectful to the likes of Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara, etc. I seem to recall Mark Recchi scoring a few goals from the slot that spring while opposing skaters were bludgeoning him with tire irons. To give all the credit to Thomas is like saying the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 because David Ortiz got hot.
My point is that if ownership counts for anything, then Bruins ownership delivered a Stanley Cup in 2011. And now Bruins fans are saying, 'OK, that was 14 years ago. Time for another Stanley Cup.'
It's up to Charlie Jacobs, not Charlie on the MTA, to make that happen.