August 14, 2006

ooookay. Allegedly, Sinden hasn't been involved in the personnel decisions of the team for a while now. If I were a Bruins fan, I'd hope that was a lie. He's aimed for little more than adequacy on the ice for the entire run of his tenure there, and if Peter Chiarelli (the new GM) doesn't push for excellence in a way that his predecessor never seemed to, it'll be many more years of 7- and 8-seeds and going out in the first round.

posted by chicobangs at 04:19 PM on August 14, 2006

He was bum.He did nothing to help the Bruins. So see you later and lets get some one cares.

posted by tpt at 04:29 PM on August 14, 2006

The last Cup came in '72 (when, maybe not coincidentally, Sinden had left the team for a while). They dined out on that until all the players from that era were gone, and they've settled for merely good enough ever since. The Bruins are living, skating proof that Good Enough is the enemy of Great. (See also: St. Louis Blues.) And stealing Cam Neely isn't enough to win you a Cup. Just ask Cam Neely.

posted by chicobangs at 06:16 PM on August 14, 2006

Sinden, Psycho. Mats Sundin still has a few more years in purgatory before he can officially become the Swedish Ernie Banks.

posted by chicobangs at 07:58 PM on August 14, 2006

I never said they didn't have success, or that they didn't come close a few times. (The late 80's were not bad to the B's at all.) What I am saying is that I always got the feeling, even when they were right in the thick of it, that Sinden as a GM had more wiggle room, with budgeting & personnel, than he used. Yes, Cam Neely was a steal. And he was the best player the Bruins have put on the ice in the last quarter century, with the possible exception of Ray Bourque. And if Harry Sinden had taken an extra chance on some help for him, the Bruins could very easily have beaten the Oilers one of those years, especially '90, after Wayne left and all the Bruins needed was to break Bill Ranford's concentration. If Boston wins just one of those two years, Harry Sinden goes down as one of the great executives the game has ever seen. Sure it's partly chance. But I think Sinden's legacy (and I'm not a Bruins fan, but I do empathize and sympathize) was that he didn't give his team the best possible opportunity to win, especially when they had a legitimate shot to go all the way. That's when you stack the deck. I bet the city of Boston would have accepted a couple of sub-.500 seasons if they were preceded by a Cup victory (see also: Post-1994 NY Rangers).

posted by chicobangs at 08:35 PM on August 14, 2006

Once again, yerfatma, you have read my thoughts. Harry Sinden was the extension of Jeremy Jacobs' personality. Had Sinden tried to spend any more of the "Hot Dog King's" money, Jacobs would have jerked the leash really hard. The operating method of the Bruins for the past several years has been to put enough people into the building to make a good profit from the (Jacobs-owned) concessions. The other part of the equation is to avoid breaking the bank on players. It's a simple cost-benefit analysis. Nothing would have changed unless the fans had revolted (fat chance in a hockey town like Boston), or the apocalypse had come. Well, the latter happened, and now with the salary cap rules (that initially caught Harry Sinden and Mike O'Connell with their hockey shorts down around their ankles), the Bruins have another chance to turn things around. Sinden, to his credit, realizes that he has to take his share of the blame for the last few years, and that he no longer has the energy to take a day-to-day role in running the team. In short, there are good and bad things to say about him and his tenure with the Bruins. Let it go at that.

posted by Howard_T at 08:04 AM on August 15, 2006

Everything that needs to be said about this already has been. Yerfatma's nerdly simile encapsulates my feelings perfectly: I come not to defend Sinden, but to bury him. Sinden is a bit like Darth Vader for me: he has a past as a good guy that's worth remembering. The dude from the Dark Side I try to think of as another guy, because I don't know how you disentangle Sinden's actions from those of the Emperor, Jeremy Jacobs. Maybe Sinden was always a cheap prick at heart; maybe he was a good guy who has a three-legged puppy at home and all the good will in the world towards Boston hockey. Without someone to give us the inside dirt, it's hard to say whether he was ineffective from 1986 (to pick an arbitrary date) onwards or whether his hands were completely tied. His performance as a higher exec in the last 10 years has been abysmal, completely free from any sort of responsibility. In his press conference, Sinden admitted that he found it more difficult to keep up these days, and that he no longer was as familiar with the newer players as he would like to be. I am neither sad nor glad that Sinden is gone. If Jacobs was gone, on the other hand, it would be party time.

posted by Samsonov14 at 01:25 PM on August 15, 2006