Jeremy Jacobs is the owner of the Boston Bruins and on the league's Board of Governors. He is also Chairman and CEO of Delaware North Companies, which provides hospitality at numerous sports facilities worldwide.

On Friday, Jacobs held court with members of the media during the club's annual media day. These are his thoughts on his team, the league and the role of sports in today's struggling economy.

On his team’s expectations…

I see this team growing. Our youth has been terrific and the growth I’ve seen on the ice has a lot to do with the attitude the coaches bring toward it. That nobody owns a position ... Nobody owns the ice ... Everything is up for grabs and available to the most capable player.

I think the fact our scouting was able to bring in the (Blake) Wheeler’s and others of the like speaks well for the organization and the way Peter’s (Chiarelli) led it. So, for an owner I am cautiously optimistic because, as I have learned, that can get away from you a little bit.

As a fan I have every reason to believe this will be an extremely exciting year.

On his fellow-tenants, the Celtics winning the NBA title…

I think those guys have done a terrific job. Going from last place to first place is nearly an impossible thing to do and they did it. They brought a lot of enthusiasm to the building. And it meant a lot to the bottom line as well. There was a great deal of focus on the building and we received a lot of visibility from having the NBA Finals here.

On ESPN’s possible involvement with the NHL…

ESPN hasn’t shown the kind of interest that everybody seems to indicate they have. We have a good financial deal, not to mention a good operating deal with Versus and Versus has grown a great deal as we have grown with them.

They are obviously not the signal you go to immediately. When I look for sports results, I too go to ESPN, but I don’t see them committing to the NHL like they do the NBA or the NFL. We don’t want to be an afterthought. We want to be really important to them and hopefully hockey becomes important enough where they seek to enjoy our product more, but right now they don’t.

I don’t think they’ve given us the coverage they normally would (if they were rights-holders), so I’m disappointed in them.

On a rumor he’d be interested in owning the Buffalo Bills…

I have always wanted to own the Bills. But the NFL, thank god, won’t allow me to because they don’t allow their owners to own two franchises. Plus, I like the Bruins more. So the Bruins aren’t for sale and I won’t be owning the Bills.

On the Russian league and the lack of a transfer agreement…

That’s just the Russians being the Russians….

There is a different logic, and it’s a logic that we over here can’t appreciate . There are a lot of wealthy people who just don’t follow hockey the way we do here and they have no problem just going and buying a player. But until they have arenas with 20,000 people, average $100 a ticket and have the advertising and the promotion that the NHL has, it’s totally different.

I don’t think that it (the KHL) will be a competitor for our league, but there are certainly markets in Europe where the NHL could expand. As for a transfer agreement, I think it will be a long time before we have one again, if ever.

On the economy…

I think all sports are going to be exposed to this economy. Maybe a little less in hockey because a lot of tickets have been sold, but I think in the future we are looking at some difficulty. I think sponsorship is under attack. Just look at the financial organizations that have participated that don’t even exist anymore. The Wachovia Center will obviously won’t be the Wachovia Center. And that permeates throughout sports.

Nobody is going to see it more than the City of New York. They have three new stadiums going up and they’ll be absent a lot of participants they were counting on having. Boston has been a little bit less affected. Canada for the sake of the sport of hockey is doing very well.

On possible contraction…

I think we’ll always be a 30-team league. There are a lot of geographic areas that are starving for hockey, so there are options there if franchises might relocate. But, our league is not in trouble. There are teams in the Sun Belt that haven’t responded yet, but there are other teams down there, Carolina and Tampa Bay in particular, that are doing very well.

On the gap between the small and large market clubs…

We have a league wide cap. We don’t have the variation between the haves and the have-nots as far as payroll is concerned. It’s a changing situation when you think about it. Before the lockout, the top revenue teams were New York and Detroit. Today, I think five out of the top six teams are Canadian. So the mix has changed dramatically. It isn’t a predictable feature, as you don’t have the variance in our sport that you have in baseball. The Yankees and the Red Sox have payrolls in excess of $130 million, while you have $30 million payrolls in Florida. That’s a drastic difference and we don’t have it in our sport. I think we achieved that through the cap.

And you have to remember that the players get 56 percent for every dollar we take in. So for every dollar we don’t take in, 56 percent of it doesn’t go to them. There’s a real reason for them to go forward that didn’t exist before.

On teams being able to keep the talent they evaluate…

The cap has that issue, but let’s face it, without a cap and in a small market, there’s little possibility they would be able to keep that talent unless they find a real angel, somebody willing to underwrite the team, so they’ll be able to keep them.

Conversely, in a community like this, a large market club can retain those players because of the vast amount of income sources. These sources just don’t exist in a smaller market, like a Miami or a Tampa. So instead you're seeing the resourcefulness of some tremendously good managers. I think it’s good. I think it’s healthy. I think it’s the way sports should be.

On the economy’s impact on Delaware North…

I think we’re going to see more of an impact next year than we will this year. I think we’re coming into a real downturn that’s going to cost us a lot.

The cost of merchandise and the rising cost of transporting goods has made things increasingly difficult. We’ve been looking at changing some menus to keep costs in line.

We’re in for a tough time. And most businesses are seeing that and preparing themselves. You’re going to see more people unemployed. Less people coming out of school finding jobs. So I do think the universities will flourish because more people are going to want to stay in school longer. It has always been the push back. It’s human nature.

On teams searching for stability in naming rights deals…

I think teams will go for the highest dollar and a name change is something you always anticipate. For us, we started with Shawmut and then it wound up being Fleet before we even opened the building. And who’s to say a Dunkin’ Donuts doesn’t get acquired by a McDonald’s in the future. I think the important thing is that we got the building back as the Garden. It’s something people associate with in a positive way.