Sinden: 'Example of 1970 Team Has Never Gone Away'

BostonBruins.com - Harry Sinden always had a case of the Mondays.
Whenever the 1969-70 Boston Bruins gathered for practice at the start of a new week, Boston's bench boss knew it was his job to get his team back on the rails.
"Our Monday practices were brutal," said Sinden. "They knew it was gonna be brutal."
The Big, Bad Bruins - as they were so aptly known - were a team bursting at the seams with personality. And with the likes of Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, Johnny Bucyk, Gerry Cheevers, and Derek Sanderson leading the way, they were a group that seemed destined for Boston's first Stanley Cup championship in nearly 30 years.

That combination of success and a penchant for having a good time added up to plenty of postgame celebrations. But when Mondays rolled around, it was time to get back to work.
"John [Pie] McKenzie was the character…he'd lie on his back towards the end of practice and put his hands and feet in the air and start acting like a toddler having a tantrum to say he's had enough," said the 87-year-old Sinden. "It was kind of a ritual for the team to know what was coming the following week."
And the Bruins embraced it. While they certainly enjoyed their share of shenanigans, they knew that their talent presented an enormous opportunity. One that could not - and should not - be squandered. So, when the work began anew, the characters knew their role.
"We did have a host of characters, but they were able to separate that from the business at hand. They were receptive," Sinden said on Monday afternoon during a conference call to discuss the 50th Anniversary of the Bruins' 1970 Stanley Cup championship.
"We used to play on Saturdays, mostly on the road, and by the time Monday came around, we had to have tough practices - and we did. They were good at it, they were a good, hard-working practice team.
"It's very difficult for me to remember players on that team dogging it or cheating on the ice."

That dedication and desire is what made that era of Bruins hockey so beloved by a city that has long embraced such qualities in its athletes and teams. The organization - and the fanbase - demands that kind of team-first culture and hard-working attitude, both of which continue to be hallmarks under the current leadership group, which has been headed for over a decade by Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron.
"I used to live in fear that the personality of that 1970 [team] and the attitude of the 1970 team and style of the 1970 team would go away once we lost some of the players, but that didn't happen," said Sinden, now a senior advisor to Bruins ownership, who began working for the club in 1960.
"It carried over and we had many teams that played with the same spirit and the same idea as that team…what [that 1970] team and the players established as an example for the way you have to behave and the way you have to play in Boston has never gone away.
"The fans won't let it go away. You guys [in the media] certainly won't let it go away. As long as we can keep that alive, we're gonna be challenging for the Stanley Cup forever."
Sinden's first Stanley Cup dreams began to materialize in 1966 when he took over as the Bruins' head coach at the same time that 18-year-old kid from Parry Sound debuted on the Boston blue line.
"When I saw Bobby Orr on the ice for the first time," Sinden recalled, "I said, 'We're on our way.'"
That the Bruins were. But it took some time.
Boston missed the playoffs for the eighth consecutive season in 1966-67, but in Sinden's second campaign behind the bench the Bruins returned to the postseason with a boost from a legendary trade with Chicago that landed the Black & Gold Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge, and Fred Stanfield.
With Sanderson - he won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year with 24 goals and 49 points - on board and Cheevers now manning the pipes, the Bruins were beginning to set the tone for a run of sustained success.
"When that [trade] happened…that gave us two solid lines," said Sinden. "And Sanderson broke into the league as one of the great rookies to ever break into this league, believe me. And Cheevers came back from the minors. Now we had a team.
"I think it was time for some identity to be established and a personality to be established. Those players did that."
They certainly did, as just two years later they posted a 40-17-19 record en route to the organization's first Stanley Cup since 1941.

Sinden also offered his thoughts on the current version of the Bruins, as well as the work of president Cam Neely, GM Don Sweeney, and head coach Bruce Cassidy:

On how the 2019-20 Bruins compare to the 1970 team…
"Very, very comparable and every bit as good. There are a couple of things in my mind - this isn't gospel - that determine good teams from the other. It's the way one team checks and the way the other team checks. This Bruins team is one of the best checking teams we've had all the way along, it really is...in today's game, that's particularly important. I do like this team, I liked it last year an awful lot, I liked it the year before.
On the transition of Neely into a front office role…
"A lot people wonder what makes someone a good coach or a good executive. No one seems to have the answer and takes a flyer - some work and some don't. But no one that I've dealt with in all my years was so in love with the game of hockey as Cam Neely.
"He took a terrific blow to one of the spectacular careers that could have been - and was - took a few years off and could not stay away from that. I knew that…it's hard to find a guy like that. It really is…to me, he's one of the things that I feel proud of…his presence in this city has been spectacular."
On the job Cassidy has done since taking over…
"The job that he was doing in Providence was never unnoticed by Don and Cam and certainly not by me. I thought that we had a gem here. His relationship with his players is what you want. It's, 'I'm in charge, but I'll help you out, I'll make you a better player. Just always remember that I'm in charge of this business this year.'
"He knows what he's doing. He was an excellent player, drafted early, suffered a serious knee injury that ended his career…the players think he is treating them properly and that's a big step in coaching a team. He knows the game, he knows how to play. I can't say enough about him.
"When he came in, we were out of the playoffs…we ended making it and I think he's had one of the best records of any coach in the league since he took over the Bruins. And he didn't take over a [Wayne] Gretzky, Bobby Orr-led team…his record is not to be reckoned with. It's pretty damn good."