No one has overseen more success or bigger personalities in the history of the Boston Bruins than Harry Sinden. <\/p>\n
Now 87, Sinden is being honored this month, along with other members of the 1969-70 Bruins team that won the Stanley Cup when Bobby Orr went sailing through the air on May 10, 1970 at Boston Garden. He has coached the likes of Bobby Orr, Derek Sanderson, Johnny Bucyk, Gerry Cheevers. He helped assemble a roster of the likes of Ray Bourque, Adam Oates, Mike Milbury and Terry O\u2019Reilly. <\/p>\n
Between his coaching and administrative career, Sinden, now a senior advisor to owner Jeremy Jacobs, has seen the Bruins win three Stanley Cups (1970, ’72, 2011) and reach seven others. <\/p>\n
But if you ask Sinden, the trade for Cam Neely in 1986 for Barry Pederson remains one of the best moves he ever made for the franchise. And not because he traded Pederson. No, that deal was great because of the impact Neely has made to the franchise on and off the ice. <\/p>\n
Sinden not only coached the Bruins to Cups in 1970 and \u201972, he \u2013 like Bill Belichick of the Patriots \u2013 served as the team\u2019s top player personnel executive as the team\u2019s general manager from 1972-2000. That\u2019s 28 years of roster building. He knew what it would take to move from an ice-level view of the game as a player, coach and GM to watching the game in the press box. He knew almost immediately that Neely had what it took to not only make that transition but make it almost seamlessly. <\/p>\n