Sinden Begins Search for Crappy New GM

"If you could fully understand the situation-and I don't expect you to because it's a complex situation and it has been a complex situation in planning and managing these teams for the past two or three years prior to the lockout-but if you were able to, and I don't say that as if you couldn't if you had access to all the facts, I just say that I can't quite understand it totally myself so probably you can't either.*"--Harry Sinden brilliantly clarifying his decision to fire crappy Bruins' GM Mike O'Connell

The dust has barely settled in the Bruins front office after the surprise dismissal of General Manager Mike O'Connell, but crappy team president Harry Sinden has already begun his search for O'Connell's replacement. "We're now in the process of putting together a list of crappy candidates who we feel can do the same consistently crappy job that Mike has done for the last twelve years" Sinden said.

Sinden took a moment to reflect on the time that O'Connell spent running the Bruins into the ground. He praised the outgoing GM for his consistently crappy job. "Mike's done a terrifically crappy job, there's no doubt about it" he said. "He's run the team exactly as I would have, and I'm proud of him for it.

"Keep in mind the kind of crappy GM I was; and the kind of crappy team president I continue to be on a daily basis. Hell, I've been calling the shots here since before most of you were born. Anyone with half a brain could have won a Cup or two in that time, just by accident, but not me. Mike has carried on in my crappy tradition and year in and year out managed to put a crappy product on the ice."

Sinden pointed to O'Connell's crappy personnel decisions in praising him. "Paticularly with regards to his free agent moves, Mike did a monumentally crappy job" he said, citing the Alexi Zhamnov and Glen Murray signings as the crappiest. "Mike gave those two washed up has beens $8 million between them. Then he nickles-and-dimes it with Mike Knuble and Brian Rolston, guys who can actually play this game, and lets them walk away. There's not another GM in the league capable of making decisions any crappier than that."

Sinden also pointed out with some pride to O'Connell's record of crappy drafts, with one exception. "The Joe Thornton/Sergei Samsonov draft obviously was not crappy. But who could have messed that up? Thornton was that draft's Tim Duncan. As for Samsonov, he was expected to go anywhere from 2nd to 5th in that draft, and it was just one of those things where he fell right into Mike's lap." Eventually, though it took until this season, O'Connell managed to make up for that draft with two remarkably crappy trades. That he was so slow to pull the trigger on those deals fed into Sinden's decision to fire him. "Mike had been trying to move those two for years, he just felt that he wasn't being offered crappy enough players in return. But myself and our crappy ownership were impatient to get a crappy deal done."

The list of crappy GM candidates has not been made public yet. But there is strong sentiment for interim GM Jeff Gorton. Gorton, 37 has spent 14 seasons with the Bruins, coordinating the clubs' crappy scouting and crappy drafts. "He has been handed by Mike O'Connell almost all of the responsibilites of a GM in the last three or four years*," Sinden said, "So he's had a lot of hands-on experience when it comes to doing a crappy job, crappily running a crappy team."

Crappy: It's called Bruins.

[*Actual Sinden quotes, thrown in for authenticity.]