Bruins drop the puck
No excuse for timing of Julien firing
Among the guidelines put in place by the Boston Police for yesterday’s Patriots victory parade were: No boozing, no climbing on mailboxes and please don’t step on the battered remains of deposed Bruins coach Claude Julien.
Many of you were late arrivals to yesterday’s announcement that Julien no longer coaches the Bruins. The news was delivered via an early-morning email from Spoked B Headquarters, followed by a late-morning press conference that took place sometime between Rob Gronkowski removing his shirt and Bill Belichick screaming, “No days off! No days off! No days off! No days off! No days off!” (Which, if you say it five times fast, sounds like a pagan chant from the fourth century.)
Bruins general manager Don Sweeney, the lone front-office key-holder to speak at the press conference, which was held at the team’s Brighton practice facility, did his best to explain the timing of the move. He cited all kinds of reasons — a break in the schedule, the fact the Bruins have played X number of games in X number of days, and so on — but he insisted it had nothing to do with the big march down Boylston Street.
“I apologize that (the decision) fell on a day where, obviously, New England is incredibly excited,” Sweeney said. “I’m not trying to take away in any way, shape or form, or deflect, or try and mute the decision that I’ve made this morning in moving forward. As I said, the schedule represents an opportunity to have a couple days of practice. I thought that was vitally important, to be perfectly honest.”
But why now? And I’m not talking “why now” as in why yesterday, but as in why have a press conference at the same time Tom Brady is cracking his voice while speaking to Pats fans?
Why not 3 p.m.? 4 p.m.? Why not have it at a time when Bruins fans would be better-positioned to watch or listen live?
“Mostly because the PR department had explained that, once you make a decision in that regard, you need to stand up in front of people and acknowledge the reasons behind it and go on from there,” Sweeney said.
Yet he said he did not want to mute the decision. So I asked him: By wedging the press conference in with the parade, did it not have precisely that effect?
“I don’t think it has that effect, other than people here in this room would be missing the parade,” he said. “Yes, I acknowledge that and apologize for that. But outside of that, I don’t think I’m downplaying the impact of the decision and how difficult it was at all, to be honest.”
Sorry, Sweens, but this wasn’t about the media folks who attended your press conference. It was about treating the Julien exodus as a pork-barrel addendum at the bottom of a Congressional bill.
For the Bruins to hold this press conference during a Patriots championship parade is tantamount to, say, the Red Sox announcing an increase in Fenway Park ticket prices on the day after Thanksgiving.
In politics, it’s called a “Friday news dump.” The TV series “West Wing” once devoted an entire episode to the custom. The episode was titled, appropriately, “Take Out the Trash Day.”
That’s what the Bruins did yesterday: They put Claude Julien out with the trash.
Please know this has nothing to do with whether the decision itself was right or wrong. Yes, Claude Julien was — and is — a very fine hockey coach. Yes, he was behind the Bruins bench for a Stanley Cup run in the spring of 2011, and that’s something a seemingly never-ending line of Steve Kaspers, Robbie Ftoreks, Fred Creightons and Brian Sutters never accomplished. But . . . Claude was on the job for a decade, and it looks like this is going to be the Bruins’ third consecutive year without an appearance in the playoffs. To put that in perspective, the last time the B’s went three straight years without making the playoffs, Bobby Orr was buying penny candy at the Hillcrest Grocery in Parry Sound, Ontario.
Fair or not, right or wrong, coaches get fired. In 2004, Terry Francona managed the Red Sox to their first World Series championship in 86 years, and to another title three years later. He is, by acclimation, and with apologies to the late, great Dick Williams, the greatest manager in Red Sox history. Yet he was fired. As was Williams, for that matter.
So we’re not lighting candles for Claude Julien. He’ll find work again, and soon. As he should. Management’s decision to fire him is no crime. The blunder was the timing. It would have been awesome if the Patriots had invited Julien to join their parade. Unlike most current members of the Bruins, he’s been on a duck boat before.