Bruins president's gaffes were many and major

	Thanks to Harry Sinden, legendary Bruins defenseman Ray Bourque had to jump to Colorado to finally get his hands on the Cup. Brian Bahr/Getty Images
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After more than 40 years spent in various capacities with the Boston Bruins, team president Harry Sinden confirmed that he's stepping away from his day-to-day duties and riding off into the sunset of semi-retirement.

Two words for Harry: Good riddance.

It's probably bad form to kick a man in the pants as he's heading out the door, but there's no avoiding this simple, painful truth: Outside of Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs, no man was more complicit in the decay of that once-proud franchise over the past decade and a half than Sinden.

Give him credit for this: with renewed hope arriving this summer in the form of GM Peter Chiarelli, coach Dave Lewis and a handful of promising players, Sinden at least had the decency to quietly accept the title of special advisor to Jacobs and let the team move forward without him.

Times like this typically are filled with remembrances of the good times, and Harry bagged plenty of skins on his way to earning enshrinement in the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983. Top among them was coaching the Bruins to the 1970 Stanley Cup, their first in more than 30 years. Of course, Gordon Bombay could have opened the gate for a lineup featuring Phil Esposito, John Bucyk, Gerry Cheevers and Bobby Orr and come away with the hardware, too, but Sinden deserves credit for getting the job done.

After moving to the front office in 1972, he began crafting a reputation as a shrewd horse trader. Perhaps his finest managerial moment was his 1986 fleecing of the Vancouver Canucks, when he swiped Cam Neely and the third-overall pick in the 1987 draft (Glen Wesley) for the one-armed Barry Pederson. Stealing Jean Ratelle and Brad Park from the Rangers for Esposito and Carol Vadnais in 1975 kept the Bruins among the league's elite for years. He later fleeced the Rangers for Rick Middleton and the Blues for Adam Oates, picking up key first-liners that helped carry the team for years.

Sinden also played his part during Boston's record-setting 29-year playoff streak. Of course, to some anyway, that post-season string merely highlighted the franchise's frustrating M.O. -- good enough to compete, but never good enough to win it all.

And that's the Harry that many will remember. This, after all, was the man who wholeheartedly endorsed and implemented the Jacobs philosophy that prioritized financial success over the win column. It's a nickel-and-dime approach that alienated good soldiers like Oates and Ray Bourque, and mired his teams in the frustration that comes from never spending the extra bucks on the players or scouts needed to get the job done. And while that faithfulness endeared him to his boss, it also slowly ate away at the local fan base, sweeping away the massive good will generated by the Orr/Espo years and relegating hockey to fringe sport status on today's Boston scene.

Sinden also was a vindictive man who, at times, made deals based on emotion rather than the best interests of the team. Valuable contributors like Andy Moog, Tom Fergus and Oates were shipped out, not because the returns improved the Bruins, but because they'd somehow offended Harry's sensibilities.