BOSTON — A Hall of Fame induction is the ultimate cleansing ritual. The purpose is to highlight the good, to erase the bad and the ugly. You get a plaque or a bust, and you get to make a speech, or someone makes one for you, and never is heard a discouraging word.
Yet here we are: Jeremy Jacobs, the longtime owner of the Boston Bruins, has been elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
To borrow a line from Matt Damon in “Good Will Hunting” as he was banging on that window in Harvard Square: How do you like them apples, Bruins fans?
At face value, Jacobs’ ascendance to hockey immortality has merit. He’s going in as a “builder,” which by the Hockey Hall of Fame’s definition honors the best of the best in the area of “coaching, managerial or executive ability, or ability in another significant off-ice role, sportsmanship, character and contributions to his or her organization or organizations and to the game of hockey in general.”
That’s a lot of gobbledygook there, so let’s re-define “builder” in a way that works locally: He built something. He built what is now known as TD Garden, which replaced the old Garden, which, and I’m sorry if this breaks the hearts of the sentimentalists, was a rat trap.
The new Garden is no palace. And nobody’s pretending Jacobs gathered his Delaware North power base around the kitchen table one night and said, “We must do this for the good people of Boston.”
Given the development that’s going up and down Causeway Street, it’s safe to say the Jacobs family has made a solid investment at North Station.
That’s a plus, not a minus: He invested in Boston. And Boston isn’t some yahoo Sunbelt town that’ll happily fork over a few billion dollars for a taxpayer-funded arena, ballpark or stadium. The owners need to pony up. Jacobs ponied up. In Foxboro, Robert Kraft ponied up.
But don’t expect thousands of Bruins fans to be rushing to Toronto to attend Jacobs’ Hall of Fame induction. That kind of relationship has never existed between Jacobs and Bruins fans, and the warm and fuzzy glow of a Hall of Fame speech isn’t going to change things. Especially a Hall of Fame speech delivered by Jacobs.
In the pre-salary cap days, Jacobs was viewed as the owner who wouldn’t pay for talent but could charge high ticket prices because he knew Bruins fans loved their hockey.
And let’s face it, Jacobs is not Kraft, who worshipped the Boston Braves when he was a kid growing up on Fuller Street in Brookline and vowed the Patriots would never leave town on his watch.
He’s not Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca, a pair of overgrown frat boys who yell and scream from their floor seats at every Celtics game and at times talk about their team as though they’re callers on Felger & Maz.
He’s not John Henry and Tom Werner, who, despite occasional overreaches into the world of baseball ops, invested millions in player payroll and Fenway Park improvements, the result being three World Series titles in a span of 10 years, and this after no championships over the previous 86 years.
Jeremy Jacobs has detailed his son, Charlie, to be the family rep in Boston. That’s done nothing to make Papa Jacobs a more popular figure around town. He remains a stiff, uncomfortable presence when he’s in Boston. Who could forget the Bruins’ Stanley Cup celebration in 2011, when Jacobs took a stab at humor by making a comment about how team president Cam Neely never won a Cup during his playing career? That was classic tin-ear stuff.
Jacobs has owned the Bruins since 1975. The team has had some very good seasons and some very bad seasons. And just one Stanley Cup. That, and the simple fact that Jacobs has never been one of the boys in the same way other owners can at least pretend to be, makes it hard for Bruins fans to get revved up over the Hall of Fame announcement.
In the industry of hockey, Jacobs has been a hard-liner and a backroom presence. And it’s the industry that’s honoring Jacobs, not the old Gallery Gods.
But if it’ll make Jeremy Jacobs feel any better, he’s not even close to being the least-deserving owner of a Boston franchise to be inducted into his league’s Hall of Fame. That dubious honor belongs to Thomas A. Yawkey, longtime owner of the Red Sox. During the more than 40 years he owned his team, the Red Sox won just three American League pennants and zero World Series championships. Yawkey’s Red Sox were also the last big league team to integrate, with Pumpsie Green joining the big club more than 12 years after Jackie Robinson debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Compared with Tom Yawkey, Jeremy Jacobs is a giant among Boston sports team owners.
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