Goodbye Sindin - it's been a "fun" ride

When Harry Sindin stepped down as the President of the Boston Bruins last week, it signaled the end of an era in Boston - granted, it was a dark era, full of the Bruins never having just enough... But it was an era nonetheless.

If nothing else, Sindin will be remembered as the GM who never got the Bruins quite what they needed - and not as the man who coached them to their last Stanley Cup victory. It was during his tenure as GM that the Bruins, who were one of the best teams in hockey in the early 1970s, slowly began to decay: they had some good teams, yes - but the teams were never good enough and the Bruins slowly got further and further away from winning the Cup.

He was the guy who hired Don Cherry - and then fired him when he couldn't get along with him, even though Cherry coached the team to two Cup Finals (and was a bench penalty away from a third in 1979) and three division titles. He was there for the mid 1980s, when he had a budding superstar in Ray Bourque and traded for Cam Neely - but also traded off Bill Ranford, the goalie who would be there to beat them in 1988 and 1990. He hired stop-gap coaches that never worked out - despite great finishes in the regular season, the Bruins were always creamed in the playoffs, either to Edmonton, to Montreal or to the Islanders.

When the Bruins traded Joe Thornton - who then rattled off a MVP season for the Sharks - it was the final straw for the Bruins. Since then, almost everybody involved - the coach, the GM and now Sindin - have either retired or been fired. To put it simply - the Bruins aren't just a sinking ship, they're one that is resting comfortably on the bottom.

The Northeastern division is one of the most competitive in the NHL right now: three teams from it (Buffalo, Montreal and Ottawa) made the playoffs in 2006 and one more (Toronto) was two points back of the #8 seed - but Boston was well down at the bottom at 26th overall in the league. Simply put, it's a long road back to respectability - but with them both opening the vault and getting rid of Sindin, it may not take as long as it could have...