The Boston Bruins held their annual "State of the Bruins" Town Hall Meeting on Tuesday night at the TD Garden. Season ticket holders were give the opportunity to hear key members of the organization speak about the upcoming season and ask some questions. NESN color analyst Andy Brickley was the MC for the event that included GM Peter Chiarelli, President Cam Neely, Principal Charlie Jacobs, Owner Jeremy Jacobs, Head Coach Claude Julien, Zdeno Chara, Mark Recchi, and Patrice Bergeron.
Here is a quick run-down of the event:
- Cam Neely drew big applause when he was introduced to the crowd.
- Milt Schmidt will be honored on October 28th for his 75 years of being associated with the Boston Bruins.
- Peter Chiarelli: Bruins will have a good goalie duo in Tuukka Rask and Tim Thomas. Tyler Seguin has impressed in training camp.
- Jeremy Jacobs: "very happy to have" Neely as President
- Claude Julien: "players determined to have a great season"
- Zdeno Chara is excited to go to Prague, but "there's business to do"
- Mark Recchi: red wine is the key to his long NHL career
The BostonBruins.com video feed crapped out for a few minutes. My guess is that I missed more of the same old shallow, high school pep rally type rhetoric.
OK, the feed came back
- Chiarelli: Savard will be back soon.
Chiarelli also issued an official statement in response to ESPN Boston's report about the possibility of Marc Savard being out for the season.
- Some lady commits my fan pet peeve by referring to the team as "we" and "us".
- Some old dude in a fishing hat, jorts, and Coke bottle glasses wastes everyone's time by asking a question about Seguin not being able to play in Providence that he could have easily found the answer to with a quick Google search.
- A dude in a suit starts question about salary loopholes by joking "we all know how the Jacobs like to spend money". According to season ticket holder Cornelius Hardenbergh, this guy was asked to leave the event by the Delaware North's hired goons.
- Jeremy Jacobs talks about being more visible after one fan politely calls him out for not being as passionate or involved as the other owners in town.
- Bruins players want fans to "gold out the Garden"...maybe a little differently than I suggested in the spring.
- Peter Chiarelli blasted "new media" and "blogs" for their coverage of Marc Savard trade rumors.
- Patrice Bergeron: "feeling 100%"
- Mark Recchi: Patrice Bergeron is the perfect example for Tyler Seguin
- Peter Chiarelli: "ultimate objective is to win the cup"
- College-aged kid thanked Peter Chiarelli for trading Dennis Wideman.
- Peter Chiarelli: Bruins have been patient with Zach Hamill and it is starting to pay off.