''I'm planning on being there for the picture," general manager O'Connell said yesterday from the Garden loge, as he watched his team practice for tomorrow night's game at Toronto. ''Unless someone tells me something different, I'll be there."
Coach Sullivan has the same plan, though he acknowledged, ''Everyone's well aware that if we don't have success, changes will come. Players know it, coaches know it, and management knows it. That's the harsh reality."
The Bruins, at this hour, are a disaster. They haven't won a game since Nov. 5 and they've drawn the wrath of their loyal but small constituency. They've won only seven of 22 games. This isn't what Boston expected when the lengthy lockout ended.
Remember the spin-o-rama? The lockout was going to be a great thing for the Bruins. It was going to be the big equalizer. The Bruins prepared by paring their roster, then sat back and made a plan while the ice melted for 18 long months. Boston would take full advantage of the new collective bargaining agreement because it would level the playing field and allow old-fashioned hockey judgment and hard work to bring a team to the top. It no longer would be about who had the most money to throw around. The new system would reward the people who know how to assemble a team. We were all pretty comfortable with that.
But it hasn't happened. The Bruins were unprepared for some parts of the new agreement. Mistakes were made. Then there were injuries. Then bad luck. And now they are a defenseless, last-place team in a town that's all too ready to relegate hockey to the status accorded the New England Revolution. Hockey -- the new professional soccer. Ugh.
