I regret to report that I will no longer be covering the Boston Bruins here at BostonSportsHub.com. As a matter of fact, I will no longer be a fan of the Boston Bruins. I have been a diehard Bruins fan for twenty-five years, but I simply can't tolerate the miserly ways of Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs any longer. For years, Jacobs has been collecting millions upon millions in profits at the expense of the team's success. Boston is the sixth largest media market in the United States but the Bruins spend money like a nearly bankrupt small-market Canadian team. One talented player after another has left Boston when it came time to pay him what he was worth. At the same time, the Bruins were never a factor in the bidding for top shelf (and thereby well-paid) free agents. When Jacobs and Company allowed Bill Guerin to leave Boston without the slightest effort my last straw was finally broken. The Bruins have an excellent young team. With Guerin and one or two more players they could have won a Stanley Cup within the next couple of years. Jacobs could have spent the money to do this and still walked away with a huge profit, but he chose to downsize yet again. Jeremy Jacobs is the real life Ebenezer Scrooge. Unfortunately, because fans continue to pay to come to the FleetCenter and see the Bruins, Jacobs is able to continue his penny-pinching. As long as attendance is strong, he will never change his ways.

Because I would like to continue following the NHL, I decided to choose a new favorite team. I began this search by writing a letter to the public relations director of each of the other 29 NHL teams asking them why I should choose their hockey team as my new favorite. Once I have collected those reponses (assuming I get some), I will publish my decision and a summary of the reaction that I receive from my letters so please check back in a month of two. By the way, I stuffed copies of all 29 letters in an envelope and mailed them to Jeremy Jacobs himself. Odds are that the old fool doesn't read his own mail, but who knows.

Follow-up:

Well, I mailed off the aforementioned 29 letters and received only five replies. The Anaheim Mighty Ducks sent me a very nice media guide, but no written correspondence. I received a schedule and a form letter from the Minnesota Wild. I received a personal response from someone from the Phoenix Coyotes, but the response was hand-written in pen beneath strips of paper cut from my initial letter. The Buffalo Sabres returned my letter with a note that said the person that I was trying to reach no longer worked there. Apparently, no one was smart enough to forward the letter to the new media director. With people like that working for the club, I guess it's no surprise that the Sabres are on the verge of bankruptcy.

The only truly positive response I received was from the Media Director of the Atlanta Thrashers, Tom Hughes. Mr. Hughes replied by email and offered to speak to me about the Thrashers. I called Tom a few days later and we spoke for about 20 minutes about Atlanta's young talent, the Bruins and the NHL. I was thrilled that he would take the time to speak with me over the phone, especially given the fact that 25 of the 28 other clubs didn't bother to respond at all with two of the other three doing no less than a form letter. I even received a Christmas Card from the Thrashers.

As pleased as I was to have been able to speak with a class act like Tom Hughes, I was very disappointed by the lack of response from the rest of the league. Consequently, I sent a letter to Commissioner Gary Betteman voicing my disappointment. In my letter, I asked why I should bother following a league whose clubs couldn't even respond to a simple fan letter. A few days later, I received a call from Adam Schwartz at the NHL Office in New York. Like Tom Hughes, Mr. Schwartz was kind enough to spend time on the phone talking about my letter. It was great to hear that he was excited about the league and its prospects for the future. On the other hand, he was defensive about the content of my letter, wondering why I would shun the NHL because of the Bruins situation and the lack of response from the NHL media/public relations departments. He indicated that the Media Directors were busy people and couldn't always find time to respond. Though I agreed in part with his statement, I didn't hesistate to let him know that I thought the response was pathetic. I can't imagine that any other industry would have a 4 for 29 customer response rate. Mr. Schwartz also defended the actions of Jeremy Jacobs but I honestly couldn't expect him to be critical of one the league's owners even if he agreed with me. I imagine that the league is furious with Jacobs for ruining a team in one of its major media markets, but unwilling to challenge him to spend more money on payroll.

In the end, I decided that the NHL did not want my business, but that is not why I stopped following professional hockey. I wrote letters to the NHL clubs because I realized that I could no longer root for the Bruins as long as Jeremy Jacobs remained at the helm and was serious about converting my rooting interest to another team. However, I found that my loyalties to the Bruins run too deep. I simply could not continue following the NHL and not root for the Bruins. The only option left was giving up NHL hockey completely. That is the option that I chose. I hope that one day Jacobs sells the team and I can return to my once-beloved Bruins, but I suspect that won't happen in the near future. There is no other investment that would allow Jacobs the enormous return that the Bruins do. The fans could stop going to games and force Jacobs to either sell or spend, but the Bruin faithful have proven time and time again that they will continue to shell out big bucks to head to the FleetCenter and watch an inferior team. This is exactly what Jacobs is counting on.