Out of Touch Bruins Management Team Insults Fans | Ep. 86
Liner notes
🎙️ The Bruins management press conference on Wednesday morning was worse than we expected. In an unexpected turn of events, the Boston media did not kowtow to the Bruins leadership and, instead, asked some tough questions - including "why are Don and Cam still here" and "will you rescind the 4% increase in ticket prices"? Charlie Jacobs shows us that he is not actually in charge and is so out of touch that he is the embarrassment, not this team. Cam flexed his iron grip on Boston and Don came away sounding relatively competent. One thing is for certain, these three adults do not understand the definition of accountability.📲 Follow us on X, Instagram & Blue Sky ➡️ @TapetoTapeMK
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🏒 PWHL announces their first expansion team in Vancouver
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📲 Follow us on X, Instagram & Blue Sky ➡️ @TapetoTapeMK
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Speaker 1: Can you start a podcast with me?
Speaker 2: Please?
Speaker 3: I need something to do.
Speaker 1: A track, send it out a trough by, say, here's a chance pot right on the goalie spark, Oh my, what a move by the rookie to one poster, Masha getting toucht the zone, oil dances in badcast?
Speaker 4: Wait right, water is there?
Speaker 5: What is?
Speaker 6: And speaking of Cam and Don, I'm proud to sit alongside these two gentlemen because I know we've got the right people in the right heats on the bus to bring this franchise back to glory. Now, let me be clear, the results from last season are absolutely unacceptable and accountability has never been higher. However, I need to tell you that when deciding what is best for the long term success of this franchise, we have to be pragmatic and used data driven decisions.
Speaker 7: Welcome in everyone to Bruin's Tape to Tape. I will be your host this evening. We are recording on Thursday, April twenty fourth, the day after the Bruins season ending presser. As you can see from the clip that has led in as an intro to tonight's episode, we are going to be spending the vast majority of our time talk about said season ending press conference among the Bruins' brain trust. But before we start tearing into our fearless leaders and management team, I want to welcome in my co host Caroline.
Speaker 3: And I know, Caroline, you are.
Speaker 7: Pretty fired up as I am fired up, and so you know we'll exchange our pleasantries.
Speaker 3: Hi, Maria, Hi, I was so hot under the collar after watching yesterday Full Disclosure. I got about three quarters of the way through that presser and I had to turn it off and discussed after a couple of key really not awesome comments and quotes from Charlie Jacobs, because the fastest way to piss off a data analyst to claim that you make data driven decisions and use the worst possible data, the wrong data to make your decisions.
Speaker 7: Like, well, we'll, we'll get We are going to get to all of it because I got my data right here. We got some data for you right here, the old fashioned way, your buffoon. But before we get going, we are going to do our you know, typical spin around the rink, because the playoffs have started in earnest, and I'm sure that many of our listeners, if not all of them, have been checking NHL dot com or even watching the games, but we'll very quickly take a quick spin through through the bracket here with the fact that you know, Winnipeg is currently up to nothing on the Saint Louis Blues.
Speaker 7: The Dallas Stars are up to games to one on Colorado. Very interestingly, Vegas and Minnesota tied at one one game a piece. La Kings are up to zip on the Edmonton Oilers, and that's prompted some lineup changes on the part of the Edmonton Oilers. Toronto up to to nothing on Ottawa. I was hoping that it would be a bit more of a series, but Ottawa is is a young team. You know, maybe things will change when they get back home to Ottawa. And my team, my adopted team, the Florida Panthers, have a one zip lead, one game to none lead on the Tampa Bay Lightning and they are currently playing as we speak.
Speaker 7: Before we started recording, Florida, I believe had a one to nothing lead in that game, but I have not since checked the score.
Speaker 3: Washington Montreal.
Speaker 7: Washington's up two games to none, but I will say that has been fun hockey to watch. It's pretty intense, pretty fast, and Montreal has unfortunately from Montreal and stop me Bruins fans if you've heard this before, but unfortunately Montreal only has one line that can score, so I don't know how they're going to sustain themselves in this series against the Capitals. And probably the series that I'm the least interested in for whatever reason is Carolina and the Devils, and Carolina is up two games to none.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So, and you know, the thing of note for me with regard to the playoffs is Gabriel Landeskog his debut last night, first game that he has played since what did my notes say, June twenty June of twenty twenty two, and I think he logged thirteen a little over thirteen minutes of ice time. Yep, six hits, So good on him, Good on him. So unfortunately they lost the game in overtime. Old pal, well Pal Tyler Sagan scored overtime. But yeah, still, you know, it's been it's been a long road.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, I think from what I've seen online, a lot of folks who are new hockey fans, maybe we're a little bit surprised at how little ice time he played. But he was on the third line, so considering third line, and you know, the number of minutes that he put in not out of the ordinary, shabby or I'm not too shabby. No, so diving right in, you know, I mean he's got a and he I didn't see me rust at all. He seemed sharp. He laid out some pretty big hits pretty much right away. So that was really cool to see, you know, so good for him.
Speaker 3: My favorite stat about his return is the fact that he's smack dab in the middle of the record for the longest absence from the game, and the two guys on either side of him were out of the league for as long as they were because they went to war in the nineteen forties, so he's very unique in that regard, right, And I gotta agree. You know, I've been watching a little smattering here and there. You know, it's been kind of APUs of hockey for me. It's a little bit unusual obviously, not feeling obligated to sit and watch and just have my mental health right, like hanging on a single game so I can bounce from game to game.
Speaker 3: I'm not overly exhausted after one game, so then you know, I can hop around and if it gets boring, I can go to bed, you know, or and I don't feel bad because I rely on the Discord. We've got so many big hockey fans in general, you know, special shout out zones too, so yeah, so special shout out and thank you to to to friends of the Pod and Discord members Jesse and Grant because just think Grant right, Grant is in our central time zone, but Jesse's on the East Coast, and between the two of them, they are keeping us apprized.
Speaker 3: I get the best highlights and news from them. So again, I strongly encourage everyone to join in on the Discord if you want some good, uh late night updates on some of these games. But Andy and I love it. Welcome.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and there's nice there's some nice banter, and it's not as you know, we find ourselves in very unfamiliar territory this year with the Bruins not being in the playoffs.
Speaker 3: So the banter is is.
Speaker 7: Is light and enjoyable where we're not you know, we're not uh being overly critical of of our own of our own team, but still not the same. I wish we had a dog in the fight, but unfortunately we don't have a dog in the fight, and and and we after after what I heard on Wednesday, I'm not sure. I'm not sure when we will have a dog in the fight again. But we'll we'll get we'll get to all that. The other big piece of news this week was the p w h L announced that they are expanding and they will now have a team in Vancouver, which is awesome, awesome, awesome.
Speaker 7: Vancouver is a hockey hotbed. It's a great city from everything that I've heard, and I do believe that they have already sold out on what is referred to as premium memberships, so hot off the presses, so good, good for them, good for the league, good for you know, the women of hockey. And hopefully this will lead to other expansion teams to grow, to grow the game.
Speaker 3: And there's going to be a second team announced a little bit later on. That has not been finalized yet, but presumably by the summer. We will hear about that second expansion team, because they like to keep it even. Speculation is Midwest, maybe Saint Louis, maybe Chicago, so it should be interesting to see where they end up landing there.
Speaker 7: Awesome, so good, yeah, good, good for them, It's great, great for the great for the women of hockey and the girls of hockey in the future of hockey in general. So we are now going to take our obligatory ad break, and then when we come back, we are going to dive right in to that season ending Bruins press conference.
Speaker 3: All right, Bruins fans, if you're thinking about picking up some new gear, now's the time. I'm already planning to grab a fresh poster NEC jersey this fall. Who knows, maybe he's rocking a new letter on the front. The NHL Shop is running tons of season ending and summer sales right now, including twenty percent off fanatics gear. And here's the best part. When you shop through our link in the show notes, a portion of your purchases helps support this podcast. Same gear you'd find at the pro Shop, but with way better part.
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Speaker 7: All right, folks, welcome back in. And as many of you likely know, likely listened to, maybe even watched or you know, followed the clips on social media, the Bruins held their customary end of the season press conference this year. It was held a little bit earlier then it's been held in the past, and it took place on Wednesday at about ten thirty am Eastern Standard time, and it went for pretty much a full hour. And I want to say to the Boston media and the writers that cover the team, job well done.
Speaker 7: Because the Blue writers that cover a lot of the local teams here in Boston where I live, have been you know, accused in the past of you know, carrying the water buckets for the teams that they cover, right, and to some degree I understand, I understand why because they are given access stability to players, coaches, they're in the locker room and they want to maintain some semblance of a good working relationship, so.
Speaker 3: They get criticized for not asking the tough questions.
Speaker 7: But in this instance on Wednesday, I don't know what cam thought or Charlie or Donnie thought they were walking into, but they did not walk into friendly fire on Wednesday. And here is one thing that I learned, well, two things that I learned pretty clearly on Wednesday, because I watched it live. I learned that it's not Charlie Jacobs, nor is it don Sweeney that runs the Boston Bruins. It is Cam Neely, and cam Neely tells Charlie Jacobs what to say, how to say it, and when to say it. Because that owner, that owner looked like every time he was asked a question that he was going to crap his pants.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, it was it.
Speaker 7: It was awful. And we'll get to some of the other out of touch things that he said. That once again is insulting to the fan base, and once again corroborates in my mind what I have known for many years. The Jacob's family does not care about its fans. They don't folks, and the only way that we can get a message through to them that we're fed up with their tone deafness is to stop spending freaking money to go into that building.
Speaker 3: We'll get to that.
Speaker 7: The other thing that I believe that I learned after listening to Cam and Don is I'm not sure we're getting back to the promised slam anytime soon.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 7: And I know you have some strong thoughts and opinions, so and I spent enough time on our podcast ranting and raving, So I'm going to give you the floor this week.
Speaker 3: It's my turn to be good. It is your turn giled go girl. So okay, Like I said, the fastest way to anger a data analyst is to again claim that you make data driven decisions, uh, and then use the completely wrong data to make your point. So if you listen, we didn't play the entire clip, but if you listened to just the opening statement, all three people, because I don't want to call them gentlemen, all three idiots sat up there and had opening statements, and Charlie Jacobs had the audacity to say that they were data driven in their decisions.
Speaker 3: Moving forward for sustained success with Cam and Don, why he said because during their tenure they had the best win record in that time, and that they made the playoffs eight years in a row. I'm literally quoting my notes because it literally pissed me off so much. And I got to tell you, I am not a person who takes notes and meetings because usually there's nothing important enough that I ever actually have to write down. But this angered me so much.
Speaker 7: Now let me tell you that I think our notes overlap. Wait, can I ask you a question? Was this before or after the three of them all got done patting themselves on the back, and you know, Charlie wants again using the words embarrassment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we embrace the criticism.
Speaker 7: Results are unacceptable accountability because judging from the way you all responded to some questions, you don't embrace noticism because you all acted like you were butt hurt. Yeah, when you were asked pointed direct questions.
Speaker 3: One thousand percent. And let me tell you one of the most this is a complete sidebar, but it is related one of the most random accounts on social media that I follow, Molly McPherson. She is actually in crisis pr and so I've listened to her kind of deconstruct you know whenever there's been a celebrity who kind of is in the crossfire and when they do or do not do a good job of responding. Crisis PR is a thing. PR is a thing. Charlie Jacobs should have been prepared someone, as I had suspected a few months ago.
Speaker 3: I think that the people around him are not being honest with him, probably in an effort to maintain their own jobs. Cam Neely number one, so he didn't probably even know that he needed to have a crisis PR team to prepare him for some pretty basic expected questions, which we will get to. But first and foremost, I would like to bring forth the following data points. Now Here is more evidence that we and we talked about this last week and probably a lot in our discord where we've said time and time again that Charlie Jacobs is playing or cosplaying as a hockey fan.
Speaker 3: The man clearly does not know and understand what is actually important to a hockey team, to a hockey player who plays in the National Hockey League, because, let me tell.
Speaker 7: You, knows what Cam tells him, He knows what K tells him.
Speaker 3: Because what Cam tells him, he tells him to keep his damn job, because Camret knows that what he is telling him is wrong. Because I know it doesn't matter if you played in nineteen forty five, if you played in nineteen seventy nine, or if you played in twenty twenty five. Wind percentage means jack shit. At the end of the day. What is the number one most important priority to every single hockey player in the National Hockey League, Maria? What is the number one thing? Why do they lace up those.
Speaker 7: Skates eighty two games a year.
Speaker 3: They want to win the goddamn Cup. They want to win the Cup. So it doesn't matter if they had an eighty five percent win percentage over the last ten years. Because I will tell you this is the following what rounds. The Boston Bruins have exited the playoffs for over ten years. Obviously in twenty twenty five, we did not make the playoffs. In twenty twenty four, second round exit, twenty twenty three, first round exit, twenty twenty two, first round exit, twenty twenty one, second round exit twenty twenty, second round exit twenty nineteen, Cup Final twenty eighteen, second round exit twenty seventeen, first round exit twenty sixteen, didn't make the playoffs twenty fifteen, didn't make the playoffs twenty fourteen, second round exit, twenty thirteen, Cup Final, twenty twelve, first round exit.
Speaker 3: Does that sound like a dynasty, successful team fighting for the Cup year in and year out to you with a first round exit, one, two, three, four times in that tenure, No, it does not.
Speaker 7: It does not yet yet I want you to believe because their resume is impeccable.
Speaker 3: Okay, because their resume is so impeccable. And what what did Kim? What did Charlie refer to.
Speaker 7: Don Sweeney as some type of a pioneer or no, my god, because we don't Okay, newsflash, Charlie, I don't give a shit what Don Neely does outside the scope of what he's supposed to be doing.
Speaker 3: Stop talking about the general manager, Stop talking about the Olympics. Correct because at the end of the day, once again, the number one priority for any player in the National Hockey League is to win a Stanley Cup. I don't care, and I can tell you that. Yeah, they want to win a gold medal. Of course, it is a fantastic experience for UH patriotic pride. But I don't care, and I can tell you, every other Bruins fan in the world knows that the number one priority, every hockey fan knows that their number one priority for their team is to win a Stanley Cup.
Speaker 3: Do you think I mean for crying out loud, look at the idiot Maple Leafs. You think that they are happy they've made the playoffs for the and exited in the first round with the exception of one season for years, this is the first time that they've ever won the Atlantic Division. But are they proud of that fact? No, because they have not won a Cup since the nineteen sixties. So nobody cares what your win record was or how many years in a row you make the playoffs. So get your head out of your ass and actually learn and understand what is important in the game of hockey.
Speaker 3: And don't listen to cam Neely because he is clearly lying to you. Because I know for sure, as the day starts tomorrow in the morning, he knows that the number one thing that he never got, that he woke up every day and tried to win, was the Stanley Cup. It doesn't matter that pissed me off, and that was within the first five minutes I knew, Oh my God, this is the kind of conference is going to be alright, it just you know, it's just.
Speaker 7: Oh he referred to Don Sweeney. Excuse me, I wrote it down as an industry leader. Those were Charlie Jacob's words. Now, okay, listen, we're not calling for anybody to be fired here.
Speaker 3: I am fire the ball.
Speaker 7: Okay, But how many times do you give the same group an op kicks at the can at the proverbial can when you keep firing coaches, When you keep firing coaches, now you've fractured or done damage.
Speaker 3: To the leadership in your room.
Speaker 7: I don't know if the culture in that room has changed, but to me it's very telling that a day later, or yeah, was it a day later, we hear that Sedano Charis role is going to be to help develop a winning culture.
Speaker 3: Again, something happened, Yes, because you fired everybody who ever played with him, who knew the culture, you idiots. So that's a perfect segue you're talking about these coaches. Here's the other thing that I think Charlie Jacobs should be incredibly embarrassed that he even uttered these words, that he had the audacity as someone who is an employer to utter the fact, and I'm going to play the clip because you have to hear it. The fact that the man could not say for certain the exact number of coaches that he has hired and fired in the last ten years, and that he could not name them all.
Speaker 7: That he could not name them all, You, sir, should be embarrassed.
Speaker 3: You are a joke. You should not be near a hockey team whatsoever. And then it leads into our favorite word, accountability. Accountability.
Speaker 2: Can you associated press, Charlie all those wins that you refer to under Don's tenure? That same thing could also be said with a couple of coaches who are currently in the playoffs with other teams. Why were they held accountable in one way when these two are being held accountable in a different way.
Speaker 6: Well, I just want to there's been a narrative that I think should we should address, and I believe there have been three head coaches of the Austin Bruins over the past I'm going to say ten more than like fifteen years when you co Claude Sweets just mentioned and we hired Bruce Cassidy for Providence and he coached down there and then came up and coached us at the Boston Bruins for some time. I think the life, the shelf life of a head coach is significantly shorter than one of a general manager or a team press that it's the nature of the beast of the job.
Speaker 6: You can have players attention for a select window of time and then some unfortunately, sometimes you lose it. It's our it's Don's it's Don's job to make sure that he's got his hand on the pulse of whether or not the players have tuned him out the head coach, and I feel he's done a pretty good job of measuring that.
Speaker 3: You think there were three coaches you think you mean to tell me, Charlie Jacobs that you cannot definitively say Claude Julienne, Bruce Cassidy, Jim Montgomery, Joe Sacho four you should know and let me tell you this as well, because this is breaking news. I mean, maybe earlier this week in case he didn't hear. Guess what gms can get fired because lou La Morello is out from the New York Islanders. He was there from twenty eighteen. So yeah, sometimes when your team really sucks, the GM can go and the coach stays yeah, the.
Speaker 7: Verbiage. The verbiage sucked, like it absolutely sucked. And you know what I'd like to also point out to Charlie Now, you said it was Don Sweeney's job to recognize when a coach has tuned things out. All right, the players have tuned them. Now things aren't going well yet. Charlie Jacobs himself sat down with a writer from the Boston Globe just a week ago, saying that he saw signs of trouble in training camp.
Speaker 3: He the owner. Yet, what did you do about it? What did you do about it?
Speaker 5: Right? What?
Speaker 7: So you just you just let that.
Speaker 3: Shit show continue?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 3: You didn't? Did you go and say to your general manager, what the hell is going on here? Yet?
Speaker 7: I'm not seeing any structure, any organization. They're also full of shit. They are all so full of shit, and it is maddening to me that they don't think that we pay close enough attention when we see them talking out of both sides of their.
Speaker 3: Asses one hundred percent. It's beyond infuriating because you start this press conference talking about accountability, and yet here you are correct blaming coaches. Correct, we're no longer employed, Still blaming coaches, still blaming coaches. So who lost the room?
Speaker 7: Was it Bruce?
Speaker 3: Was it Jim? They never talked about Jim. That was like, you don't talk about Jim, like he's dead to them. I don't know what the hell was going on there, because when they talked about, you know, the head coach search process and all this stuff, and I think Don Sweeney even went on to say, like, well, I've only really been involved with one head one head coach hiring and you know, and then we had Bruce come up as driving.
Speaker 7: Because he was an assistant GM when these guys were fucking hoigh you were involved with, right, you are still I'll still have.
Speaker 3: Heard of it, like maybe you're bad, maybe you're bad at picking head coaches, Like yes, okay, I don't disagree in theory with the idea that the shelf life of a coach is likely shorter than a GM, right, because a GM and a president have to have a a thirty five thousand foot view of everything, right, so they have to be there for a little bit longer to make things happen and to affect change. Right, But how many coaches does it take to the point where you think there's something wrong not with the coat all those coaches were bad.
Speaker 3: All of those coaches lost the room. All of those coaches had the players stop listening to them. That's what they want. Maybe you're taking bad they want us, that's what they want us to be. Leave one or two coaches okay in ten years, yeah, three or four in short succession. That may right raises eyebrows.
Speaker 7: And that leads me to the question to the and again, God bless the writers that were in that room and the people that covered I.
Speaker 3: I can't say drop.
Speaker 7: And I'm not a fan of Kevin Paul DuPont, but I even have to give him some flowers for the questions that he asked.
Speaker 3: But when there was a question posed by Tara Fitzgerald directly to Don about the coaching process, because Don did acknowledge, that was the one, the one fact that we got out of this that.
Speaker 7: There is going to be a coaching cirt He's had a conversation already with Joe Sache, but there is going to be a coaching search.
Speaker 3: And let me tell you something. I if I'm a member of the Bruins coaching staff right now, I might be polishing up my resume.
Speaker 7: Oh they damn well better be they you should be polishing up yoursme. But Tarah asked Don Sweeney, do you have any concern or any worry about how this how coaches coaches who are available may perceive being a coach here based on the fact that you have let go of three very good coaches in a short period of time. And he Don got very snarky with Tara, very snarky with Tara, and I'm paraphrasing, but his response was basically, well, I'll let you know. If anybody you know decides not to come and interview for one of the most historic jobs in the league, go f yourself, Donnie.
Speaker 7: Okay, yeah, So he he I think recognized that he was a snarky asshole and then gave a little bit more tempered response to that. But it's a fair question. It's one It's a question that we've talked about on our podcast. If you have seen what has gone on here right with you know, letting go of good, solid coaches who, by the way, go on to have success someplace else, right, wouldn't you be concerned, particularly in this last instance with Jim Montgomery, where he literally wasn't able.
Speaker 3: To choose his own coaches yeah, yeah, I mean if I was, I mean I've I've had that experience as a person who has applied to jobs and searched. It might have been a part of the job search process where you find out, oh, your last person quit after three months. That's not good. That's not good. And you know, just because these three are living in La La Land doesn't mean that all the other eligible coaches. And this goes also to to to players. You know, we talked about that a little bit last week, where the players are being asked like do we need to convince people to come here?
Speaker 3: And it's like, obviously they were tiptoeing around it, but they all talk amongst themselves too. They're not going to them, to their friends and to their peers. You know, you throw away the most important parts of your team, that means anyone can get thrown away, you know. So that's just I will say, this is probably one of the very few times you will hear me be complimentary to Don Sweeney, although in when he's sitting next to those two other idiots, I typically am nicer to him because he was more competent, he did speak more, he was more thoughtful.
Speaker 3: I think he handles the media generally better and I will agree with you in general, yes, he does better handling.
Speaker 7: He could be a bit of a snarky prick when he wants to be as all you know, as as Neelie definitely.
Speaker 3: Was he he came he came off the worst. Well we'll get to know. We're going to get to him. What what see, Bass, go kick your own ass.
Speaker 6: My god.
Speaker 3: So my last most infuriating part of this entire situation. Now, we talked about this a little bit last week where I mentioned last week Seattle. When the season ended in Seattle, they made a huge statement, and I mean huge. They didn't just have words on a piece of paper, on a tweet or what have you, saying we didn't do enough. We are recommitting ourselves to a better team in the off season and to the fans. And then they took action. The Seattle Kraken, after one season, which is mind blowingly short, relieved their head coach of his duties.
Speaker 3: They shuffled around some people in the front office, and the most significant action to prove that they value their fans, the Seattle Kraken slashed their season ticket prices and offered concessions discounts next season. So, uh, needless to say, some of these perks over there. Season ticket holders there are going to get a twenty five percent discount on food and drinks, as well as special calendar of activities and exclusive events.
Speaker 7: My head's going to explode. My head is going to explode.
Speaker 3: It's it's absolutely insane. I will make sure to include in our show notes, what what how they've recommitted.
Speaker 5: This.
Speaker 3: This is what one of the wealthiest men, an extremely privileged wealthy man, had the audacity to say. And this was when.
Speaker 5: Vint Boston Globe. I've got a question for each of you, a different question, if I could. I'll start with you, Charlie. You mentioned how tough this year was an embarrassment to use your word. Would you consider rescinding the four percent price increase for the season ticket holders, well on top of the nine percent last year.
Speaker 6: I see ticket pricing is a sensitive subject. I'm aware of that things cost more, as are the way our structure of the US economy is based. Things cost. I expect that you probably pay your higher electric building you did last year. I know that we, for instance, pay more to open our building, for security, for ushers, for concession workers, for parking, attendance, everything people deserve and raise and an increase. Likewise, we increase our ticket prices as our expenses go. I mentioned this before.
Speaker 6: Every dollar we bring in, fifty percent goes to the players. We're in a partnership together with them. So the ticket increase, the price, whether it's four percent or nine percent, is all going back into the hockey club. So we've made our decision. We've raised our ticket prices, and no, we'll not be restinding that.
Speaker 7: I don't even know where to begin with this tone deaf billionaire boob, And I said, billionaire. First of all, you're a goddamn liar, because not every bit of that money goes back into the hockey club because you're in the business of making money. You don't own a team if you don't expect to make some money off of it.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 7: And the fact the fact that he could stand up there and whine about the cost of everything going up? What about the people? What about the people who work their asses off? You disingenuous billionaire boob? And the only reason you're there is because your father put you there to begin with. What about those people that work their asses off to go to one game a year. And that's how you say thank you to them. Go bleep yourself, Charlie.
Speaker 3: The fact that this man had the audacity to try and blame the increasing in ticket prices on quote unquote needing to pay people more money. First of all, yes, you should be paying them a living wage, Charlie, because Boston is fucking expensive. It's a tough place to live. The world is expensive. You're right. The election, and.
Speaker 7: Maybe if they didn't have if Delaware North, if Delaware North didn't have a reputation, Oh and who owns Delaware North, that would be the Jacob's family, if they didn't have a reputation for nickel and diming their own mother. Yep, he's so that they don't find their own pockets, right.
Speaker 3: What he doesn't take into account is the fact that five thousand dollars out of my bank account takes a larger bite out of my total bank account than out of his bank account. So, first of all, don't call cry poor never ever, because here's the thing, maybe if you were magnanimous, you could make a little less money, your dumbass rich Maria, because the Susan prior to these idiots who are there and saying, but I need to continue to make my billions of dollars. Tell us what the other fact of the matter is when it comes to hockey related revenue in the NHL, those ticket sales are not the only thing that is funding a hockey team.
Speaker 3: Okay, you've got ticket sales, You've got national and local TV and media deals, sponsorship, advertising concessions, parking, merchandise sold at the arena, NHL dot com, revenue of scial events. All of this is in one gigantic, big pot and then they split it. Okay, you remember a number of times Brad Marshand made some pretty fiery remarks about these what did he call them? I can't even remember now because I'm so angry, but he would call it poverty franchises because teams like the Bruins or the Rangers or you know, the Canucks would have to Ultimately, they brought in more money into the gigantic pot because correct, they get more media deals, they have more people watching.
Speaker 3: The more people who watch the team, the more money goes into the gigantic pot. And that gigantic pot is what is split with the players and is what dictates the cap. And remember what happened in COVID. You remember this little thing called escrow because the whiny little bitches of owners didn't make as much money, but they were locked into contracts to pay the players. They were legally obligated to continue paying the players. These rich people cried, but we're not as rich as we could have been, So the players now have to take a furlough cut off of what they could be making, and we have to make more until we can finally get back to even.
Speaker 3: So what this year, I'm not gonna make eight billion dollars, I'm.
Speaker 8: Only gonna make seven point five because I need to have a four percent increase so that you, Maria, have to spend one thousand dollars to go to one game on your birthday.
Speaker 7: So Charlie Jacobs go to hell.
Speaker 3: Get a clue. I cannot and he seemed. And here is the difference. And assume that anyone would have the audacity to say, can not charge us four percent for a team that you're sitting there and you're saying to us, I'm not mandating we make the playoffs next year?
Speaker 7: What is it then?
Speaker 3: Why would I pay four percent more? Be angry?
Speaker 7: We must make it right Jesus Christ. And here is the difference. Here is the difference between the two franchises, historic franchises that are in that building together. When the Boston Celtics went through a rebuilt many many years ago where they made the difficult decision to trade Paul Pierce Kevin Garnett, right, they reached out, They proactively reached out to their season ticket holders to say, listen, we did what we did, this is why we had to do it. We are going to be we are, we need to rebuild.
Speaker 7: It's going to be, you know, very difficult time for us. But we you know, we want you to stay with us. We want you to believe in us. So here's what we're going to do. We are reducing if you will stay with us and keep your season tickets, we will reduce the cost of your tickets by a set amount. They did that not one season, but at least two seasons to keep their season ticket holders, knowing that they were going to be in for a rough ride. What does this what does this family do?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 7: They in essence give their fans the middle finger. That's exactly what Charlie did with that response. They don't care about their fan base. They don't no, and.
Speaker 3: He's completely shocked and totally thrown. If you if if you are only listening and you didn't see it, I mean he was extremely thrown by that, and to make matters worse, to piss me off even more. As a follow up question to my favorite president of Hockey Operations, we got a classic snarky response from Cam Neely to this particular question.
Speaker 5: Okay, Cam, question on drafting and development. Neither of them have really been up to expectations in my opinion. So can you just elaborate on like Kevin Theft, Yeah, well, where we've picked and who we picked and how it's turned.
Speaker 9: Out that that's the jealous Uh, that's a dick move because it is a move he's he's saying, Well, you're saying that we didn't draft, Well, give me names, give me, give me statistics of of how it didn't go.
Speaker 3: Well, tell me exactly what do you mean, sir? We we were the only team that didn't have somebody in World juniors. We have a pretty shallow prospect pool, one of the worst in the Laite rated one of anybody. Yep, So don't be an ass and answer the question, because you know what it is. Instead you're you're nitpicking at him and saying, well, tell me exactly what you mean. You know what he means, you knew what he meant.
Speaker 7: No, But then he makes it worse because he goes on to say, he goes on to say, with respect to the twenty fifteen draft, which you know we've talked about that ad nauseam, okay, but Kevin Paul DuPont opened up the door, so we're going to bring it up because cam Neely right, this was his response. Well, you know, it was John's first year and he was new to the job, and we really didn't have a lot of time to get ready, and we thought, you know, they were lusting. After making a trade, they got left with their dicks in their hands and they weren't ready.
Speaker 3: They weren't ready. But he was an assistant GM.
Speaker 7: He was you there, and he was with him.
Speaker 3: He was all there. There was kind the scouting team at one point too.
Speaker 7: So you know what, just just shut the f up. Shut the f up, okay, because you show you show your defensiveness, but you're ineptitude.
Speaker 3: You can't be sponding, you cannot be questioned. How dare we ask you correct dare we push back and say you're not doing a good job? Why are you still here? I honestly, I want to just reiterate and second your compliments to the press in the room, because we all were speculating and questioning and wondering, is the Boston media going to actually ask those questions? Are they gonna ask? I mean, the ticket price is one was just a pleasant surprise of a question. I was like, Oh, that's a great question.
Speaker 3: Absolutely someone should ask that. But we had speculated is someone gonna say why are these two guys still here? And the associated press did, and I my jaw was on the floor. I could not believe that someone actually had the balls to ask that question.
Speaker 7: And there was yeah, no, And and what I loved is we actually got to see the three of them for what they actually and truly are. We have we have the owner who is merely a figurehead, who is is is clueless and bumbling and tone deaf and privileged. And then we then we have you know, we have the mafia boss who was sitting in the middle, who you will do as I say the marionettes, correct, correct, correct, right, And then we have then we have down who's dirty work, does the dirty work. And let me tell you, Don, I'm not sure you got a ringing endorsement from your buddy Cam about your future moving forward.
Speaker 7: I'm really not sure that that was any ringing endorsement from Cam Neely on Don's job security.
Speaker 3: And Cam never will compliment another person because I'm sure he probably is thinking, well, I can't compliment someone else because then it makes them look good. And I can't have anyone even look good, not necessarily even better than him, but that he can't make it, have anyone look positive because what he's so insecure, right, I don't know what is this. It's bullshit, is what it is. I cannot believe that I have to sit through this summer and watch that the people build another team. I listen it at the start of the pod.
Speaker 7: But one of the couple of things that I learned from this press conference is we're not We're not getting back to being any type of contender in the coming season. Because when asked about, you know, the roster moving forward, and Sweeney said they needed good health, which he's right, you need right, you need hampus, you need right, they need more goalies, need to be sharp, right, they need more goalie competition. He made reference to that that was interesting all the Yeah, more than once, more than once.
Speaker 7: And I don't know what question was asked of him, but it was in the context of Swayman's workload and down Sweat said that Swayman was unequivocal in saying that his workload was not a fact. Yeah, in his adamant he said, he was right, adamant that it was not a factor in his on ice performance. But you know the fact that he had Jonis Corporsalo in his and and he said it openly that twenty five games was not enough for him to play, so, you know, maybe we'll go back to that type of standard. What else did he say that I wanted to be like, no shit, Sherlock was, Oh, the power play was dormant.
Speaker 7: You think it was dormant? How about virtually non existent? How about virtually non existent?
Speaker 3: You ding bat? Okay.
Speaker 7: The other thing that I found a little bit alarming was that Don said they were going to focus their needs on wingers this season, on wingers, and I thought to myself, wait a minute, wait a minute, you have still gaping holes at center. As a matter of fact, I happened to be watching NHL Network last night and they have a segment called you Don't Say and on the panel was Catherine Tappan, Mike Rupp, and Corey Schneider and they were replaying snippets.
Speaker 3: I heard about the Corey Corey Schneider's comment yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, And.
Speaker 7: What he said was, listen, they've never recovered from the fact that they lost Patrice Bergeron and David Crachie.
Speaker 3: And he used the phrase.
Speaker 7: Organizational malpractice, that you weren't prepared for the eventuality of those two players leaving. And to this day, how often have we have we talked about a succession plan, and particularly where Patrice Bergeron, because those guys don't grow on trees, they don't. But the fact that here we are twenty twenty five, going into the twenty twenty five twenty twenty six season, where your general manager still doesn't have a fucking plan for that yet. But we're gonna have a plan for wingers? Yeah okay, yeah, Well so, I mean, honestly, I think I think we're in for somewhat of a bumpy off season.
Speaker 7: I think that we're in for bumpy season ahead, if not more than one bumpy season ahead. If I'm wrong and something dramatic happens in the off season, I will gladly talk into my microphone and say, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, but based on what I've heard, yeah, and what we've said and what we know about our franchise.
Speaker 3: M y, do we do? We have confidence? Mm hmm Nope, nope, but I'm tired of being angry. Yes, So we shall see what happens next. Uh, We're gonna have a few fun episodes coming up over the next weeks. We're not talking about Dan, Don cam or Charlie. Nope, We're We're gonna We're gonna have Friend of the Pod Mo back on to talk about what makes a good forward line, what makes good deep pairings, and Greek goaltending. We're gonna have a lie for the lottery, which again we're still waiting on the exact date.
Speaker 3: So we've got a month of interesting and fun conversation and content coming up, So make sure you continue to like and subscribe and follow so you don't miss any of that. And if there is any breaking news, I mean, I can't imagine we're going to be hearing anything about coaching until after the Stanley Cup, just because everybody always likes to see where the dust settles and who's actually available and who goes where and whatnot. But I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, in a couple of weeks we start to hear trades, so it should be interesting an interesting time to be sure.
Speaker 7: Well, Peter Laviolette is available, and we think we think we have issues, we think we have issues, yep, with with the mess that was the New York Range just this year, and and you know, Chris Drury basically expended, ah yeah, yeah, well we'll we'll bring we'll bring our friend Jimmy back and cry together again about.
Speaker 3: The season that could have been. But any final thoughts on that horrific presser that we knew was going to be bad but didn't realize it was going to be this bad.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I guess I didn't understand the degree to which and the depths to which that that trio would sink to justify themselves, to justify themselves.
Speaker 3: And to continue to to some degree.
Speaker 7: And I'll remove maybe Dawn for part of this, but the disingenuous conduct.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm yeah, yeah, yeah, terrible, But as always gobyes, I guess
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