Some of the recent signings by the Jets have pushed them toward the salary cap limitGETTY IMAGES
NHL Jets Exec Chair Mark Chipman insists his organization is "capable as a business to spend to the cap without financial strain" and "no one should think of us as just barely in the league," according to a Q&A with Eric Francis of SPORTSNET.ca. Chipman said the Jets are a "middle-of-the-pack team in terms of our capacity to generate revenue," with the club slightly ahead in some categories and "slightly behind" in others. Chipman: "We're a mid-range team and that allows us to pay for the players that we need to if we have to go to the cap and be competitive long term." Francis noted even though some recent signings have "pushed the Jets towards the limits of the salary cap," Chipman still "insists it was his intention to spend to the ceiling all along." Chipman: "It used to trouble me when people referred to us as a 'budget team.' We weren't a 'budget team' -- I thought we were just being a rational team." Asked about the team's ticket prices this season, Chipman said that the team has "really kept a cap on them." Chipman: "Our max we can go up is five percent because we have long-term ticket arrangements with our customers. So they've been going up, typically, three per cent and as high as five per cent, but that's it" (SPORTSNET.ca, 9/20).
