The Danbury Trashers – Skating on Thin Ice

Organized Crime and Punishment

Title: The Danbury Trashers – Skating on Thin Ice

Original Publication Date: 10/11/2023

Transcript URL: https://share.descript.com/view/iwB0rOeBrF9

Description:

In the first part of this two-part episode of Organized Crime and Punishment, Frank, Mustache Chris and Steve delve into the intriguing story of the Danbury Trashers hockey team. Founded by James Galante, a prominent figure in the waste management industry with alleged connections to organized crime, the Trashers' rise to notoriety is a fascinating tale of sports, business, and criminal influence.

In this episode, we explore the origins of the team and how it became a symbol of defiance against the established hockey world. We discuss the controversial figures involved, the Trashers' unique marketing strategies, and the tensions that arose as they challenged the status quo in minor league hockey.

#DanburyTrashers #OrganizedCrime #HockeyHistory #SportsScandal #JamesGalante #MinorLeagueHockey #hockey #NHL

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Begin Transcript:

[00:00:00] Welcome to Organized Crime and Punishment, the best spot in town to hang out and talk about history and crime with your hosts, Steve and Mustache Chris.

I'd like to welcome everybody back to a special Episode of Organized Crime and Punishment. We're joined not only by Mustache Chris, but also our new contributor on this series, and hopefully many series to come, Frank Scalise, and you will be aware of him. Frank Scalise from some of our previous episodes, Frank Scalise was a 20 year officer with the Spokane police department.

Uh, so [00:01:00] he's going to give us a law enforcement perspective, but today he's also going to give us both. Frank and mustache. Chris are going to give us a perspective on crime, but not only crime, but a mutual passion of theirs of hockey. As we talk about a really. Fascinating piece of history, of hockey history and the mafia history with the hockey team called the Danbury Trashers.

And we're going to have a really wide ranging conversation about organized crime, hockey, hockey meets organized crime, and much, much more. Maybe we'll start with Chris. Can you give us a little bit of background on why you came up with this episode, because you had come up with this episode just for people.

If you want to really dig in deep, even more into this. There is a Netflix documentary on the Danbury trashers, but we're going to go into some other avenues on this story. Chris. [00:02:00] But to start us off, what got you interested in this particular topic? And why did you think it might be a good one for a collaboration?

When me and Frank and you all talked previously on the, the previous episodes, we, what you guys didn't really hear was, uh, me and Frank talking about hockey and Frank's a Flyers fan. I'm a Maple Leaf fan and we just hit it off right away because I don't know, I guess we're both like, uh, hockey nerds. Uh, you know, it's not very often you meet people who can remember players like, You know, Donald Breshear and, you know, from way back in the day, and we were talking about even when the Flyers beat the Leafs in the playoffs and almost immediately after we finished our conversation, I remembered, oh, yeah, there's a documentary that literally is about hockey and organized crime, and it would fit perfectly for the show.

And why wouldn't I want to talk about probably two of my most favorite things now? Um, what did you think? What was your first [00:03:00] blush of this? Frank, when you watched the documentary, I had watched it once before, uh, shortly after I think it first came out. My wife. Watched it and said, you would love this.

It's hockey and the mob and it's a fascinating story. So I checked it out. But when, when Chris brought it up as a possible discussion point here, I went back and watched it again just earlier this week. And Christie and I sat down and what struck me about it was how, how completely. Interwoven the two topics were, I mean, the things that were happening that were mob related in this story were tied directly into things that were happening to the, the hockey element of the story and, and there were just a lot of different things that I'm sure we'll touch on that, that, that reached out and grabbed me by the throat and said, Hey, this is pretty interesting, um, as a huge hockey fan and, and, uh, and, uh, yeah, Fan of [00:04:00] Canadian culture and, and certainly hockey culture.

Um, I liked some of the things that they showed, but the, the, the mob culture, or at least the family culture of the Galantes and the dynamic between the father and the son, especially, uh, was pretty interesting. And so I'm sure we'll delve into that. It's kind of interesting. I watched it and I remember absolutely zero about this.

I don't know if it just wasn't national news or it was happening during when the Iraq war was just about starting in Afghanistan. So maybe that, uh, didn't rise up in the news. It was also during the, during the lockout, the NHL lockout. And so a lot of people. That weren't massive, crazy fans, uh, kind of checked out on hockey, unless they had a local team to follow.

So it wasn't getting a ton of news. I don't think. Yeah, that's really interesting. I also, I mean, it was just incredible. The. The story had so many different elements and a lot of elements that you, Chris, and I [00:05:00] had talked about with wrestling. I felt like I was watching something that was ECW like with this extreme, uh, extreme form of entertainment.

Uh, Chris, maybe you could set us up a little bit of the background in the early life of AJ Galante and Jimmy Galante, the founders of this team. Yeah, well, like, early in the documentary, I think the first person you see is the, is the commissioner of the UHL, and he immediately starts talking about Jimmy and, you know, like, how he did all this stuff for the community, like, not just like, oh, he was donating turkeys, like, I believe he was, like, actually building buildings, and he was donating to the hospital, and, you know, from everything.

Football field. Football field, yeah, and, um, From everything that I read, he was, uh, you know, uh, Jimmy Galante, the father of AJ Galante, who was a, like, a very well, uh, respected, uh, member of the Danbury community. And we get this little [00:06:00] montage of, like, uh, uh, AJ, like, when he was just, like, 16 or something like that, and it just made me laugh, just how people used to dress.

Fact, because I grew up during that time, like me and AJ are probably around the same age, and just like the baggy clothes, and like the, uh, like the hats with the giant gold chains, it just looks ridiculous, even he, I've listened to some stuff that he's done, like podcasts, and like interviews, and he talks about just how ridiculous he looked at the, at the time, it just, it's like one of the better moments in the documentary, in my opinion.

So, uh, Jimmy, he's, what was his industry that he was in, because that'll, uh, inform a lot about the, of what we were, what we'll be talking about. Oh yeah, Jimmy, he was like, yeah, he was the, uh, actually owned one of the largest, well, he owned the largest, uh, trash company in the Connecticut, uh, region, I believe that served, uh, like Winchester Putnam.

In Putnam, New York, like all [00:07:00] around that area. I mean, you're more familiar with that geography around that area, right? Like, where is that? And I believe that is right on the border with Connecticut. They're all kind of touching in that, uh, the tri state area. Yeah, well, he like he ran like the auto recycling company was called, uh, auto, uh, automated, uh, waste disposal.

He had like up to upwards to like 50 trucks, right? Like this guy was running a multi million dollar business and trash disposal. I don't know if, uh, maybe our audiences might not be familiar with it, but like trash disposal and especially in and around that New York region, uh, Up, up and around there and the mob was just, was one hand in hand.

I think at one point literally the mob ran the entire like trash business in New York. That's like, I don't mean it was convenient for getting rid of bodies too. So they, uh, Jimmy, he kind of, uh, corners the market in this, uh, [00:08:00] in this whole trash business. He winds up going to jail and this sets up a whole, uh, narrative arc that they have.

With this, but let's get right into the hockey team and maybe you can set us up, Chris, with the hockey team. And then I think you and Frank are going to just go off on hockey. So let's, let's get into the hockey before we hit the hockey. Can, can I point out 1 quick thing? Um, and that is that, uh, uh, and, and I think you and Chris can speak to this a little bit more, but I didn't want it to slide past that.

Uh, Jimmy Galante was. It was listed as a, as a very close associate of, uh, uh, again, was it Ionello? Is that the, the acting? Oh, Maddie. Yes. Yeah. Maddie, the horse. Ionello. Yeah. Ionello who, if I'm not mistaken, was the acting Don essentially of the, the Genovese family. Uh, you, you guys are up on this more than I am, but that sounds to me like a [00:09:00] one heck of like, of a connection for some, for some clout.

Yeah, and then Jimmy was, um, yeah, for sure, like, Jimmy was connected to, um, well, in particular, the Genovese crime family, but in particular, he was a capo, actually, Matty, the, uh, horse Ionello, and, uh, anybody kind of knows, like, knows a bit about the, well, I would say more than a bit, like, Matty the horse was, uh, Oh, He was a big deal, right?

He's actually, uh, quite famous for peddling pornography, believe it or not, and, uh, when we get near to the end, I think that's, uh, the downfall of Jimmy Glancy and the Danbury Trashers, uh, that's one of my theories of, um, what happened to him, but we'll save that for, we'll save that for a little later on.

Yeah, it seemed to me like Jimmy, if he wasn't, I can't say guarantee or I wouldn't say 100 percent that he was a made man. He was in all of that, but he was very, I guess what they say in the modern parlance, mob adjacent and [00:10:00] that particular industry you needed in the. Trash disposal industry. You need connections to governments.

You need connections to big business. You need a lot of connections that something like organized crime can grease the wheels on. If you just look at, uh, the De Cavalcanti family in New Jersey of what the Sopranos was all based on, it's this whole idea of, uh, municipal garbage collection. If I mean, if you look at Jimmy and it's in the documentary, he kind of sees himself as like Tony Soprano.

He has like a big picture of him with Tony, uh, Tony Soprano signed. I mean, if he wasn't a made guy, he definitely felt like he was a mobster, you know, it was the thing that he taught his kids growing up was like, you know, always be a stand up guy and don't rat, you know, straight up like that's what AJ was saying when he was a kid.

Right? So definitely. If he wasn't a maid guy, I don't know for sure. I was actually researching this and sometimes, sometimes these things are [00:11:00] hard to tell. I tend to lean to think that he was a maid guy, um, but maybe he wasn't. Either, either way, he was a, he was a favored associate, though, at the very least, right?

Oh, yeah, for sure, right? Like, uh, even if he wasn't a made guy, I still have a feeling, like, if you were going to whack Jimmy Galanti, you would probably still need permission, just because the amount of revenue that he was bringing in, which was millions of dollars. You mean he was a good earner? Oh, yeah.

What was the short story of how they actually got into the hockey racket? AJ got hurt, right? Yeah, that's exactly it. It's like AJ was, uh, he got into, um, playing hockey and he loved it. And his dad liked watching him play hockey and knew how much AJ loved it. And he hit a kid. And even AJ says he doesn't even know exactly what happened, but.

He banged up his knee really bad to the point that [00:12:00] he just would never have been able to play hockey ever again. And I was reading apparently, Jimmy had been thinking about getting into minor league hockey, like investing into it. And like, before any of that happened, and this kind of just kick started it off or well, I would, I don't know, they call it a minor hockey league.

I don't know if I would consider the UHL minor league hockey, but yeah, Getting into smaller hockey is the way I would describe it for those folks that aren't into hockey. I think you could use a baseball analogy. Like, you got the NHL and that's like the majors and then you've got the American Hockey League and that's like triple a and then you've got some double a leagues like maybe the East Coast Hockey League is probably double a and then you got like a tweeners like they're not quite single a, but they're pretty low double a and that's like.

All the rest of them, the Southern Professional Hockey League, the UHL, this, this league that they're in and, and a slew of others that are smaller and more regional, but you're still talking about guys that are pretty damn good at hockey. I mean, they're [00:13:00] playing professionally. They're just not NHL caliber.

I mean, there's only 700 some jobs in the NHL. So he pretty much got to be the best in the world to be there. Steve here. We are a member of the Parthenon Podcast Network, featuring great shows like Richard Lim's This American President and other great shows. Go to ParthenonPodcast. com to learn more, and here is a quick word from our sponsors.

Oh, that was a question that I did have. So that's not, it's, it's interesting because we'll get into some things later on. It wasn't really in the baseball metaphor. It's not AAA, the league that they were in, like people who are on the cusp of professional hood. AA at best, I would say, I mean, uh, and lower AA, like, uh, the East Coast Hockey League is probably a higher tier talent wise than, than, uh, than the, than the UHL.

Is the UHL even still [00:14:00] solvent? Chris, do you know? No, they're not around anymore. It's, uh, the UHL, it's, it's weird cause it's like, it's, it's, it's a minor league, but it's like kind of semi pro. So in the UHL, okay. So I'll use an example up here. We have the Ontario hockey league, the OHL, and that's strictly developmental, right?

So you, you can't be older than, I believe it's 18. Once you're 20, is it 20? Yeah. Every team can have like three or four overagers. So it's really. 16 to 19. Yeah. So that they get strictly for developing young talent is really what it is. Right? And then you go from there, like, Oh, are you good enough to play in the NHL, the HL, or, you know, maybe overseas in the KHL, or there's a lot of different leagues, right?

Where the you HL. They never really got into the details of how it works, but I know in the AHL, it's considered, it's a semi developmental league, where you're allowed to have a certain amount of overagers, [00:15:00] right, but only a certain amount, so I think it's like, I don't know off the top of my head, it could be, do you know, is it like, you're allowed to have like, was it like 50, it's not 50, you can have like 25 percent of the roster being overagers, I'm not sure.

Yeah, I mean, overagers is probably not the term I'd use though, cause that's specific to junior, but I think you mean veterans maybe, um, of a certain, and I don't, I don't know what the rule is, but you could definitely look at the American hockey league as the farm league to the NHL. In fact, most NHL teams, almost every one of them, uh, has an affiliate.

So, you know, the Toronto Maple Leafs have the Toronto Marlies, you know, and so they send people down and bring them back up. A lot of the teams also have a essentially double a affiliate. And those are mostly, uh, maybe exclusively. I'm not certain on this, but they're, uh, East coast hockey league teams. And so I don't know who it is for Toronto for the flyers.

It's, [00:16:00] uh, uh, it was, uh, the. Yeah. Or was it Richmond last year? I think I can't remember. Um, the point being is that that is your professional developmental leagues, right? One's AAA, one's AA, as opposed to the junior leagues, which are for kids, you know, 16 to 20, mostly 16 to 18, 19, uh, developmental. So the UHL is a cup below that.

Um, and I think when you call it semi pro, I think that's a good word, Chris, because like some of the guys that AJ hired hadn't played hockey in a while, you know, this was like a return to the game for them. Well, they, they had that one player to Roman, uh, the Nigerian, I'm trying to remember his name right now.

He played in the NHL. He played in the NHL. Brent Gretzky, he played a, not a lot, but he played a couple of games and a couple of points. Yeah. Um, and I'm trying, Mike Rump, we'll get, well, that's near the end and he played in the NHL, of course, you know, so it's like, it,[00:17:00]

there's older players, but there's, there's younger players there and, and the documentary, they call it minor league hockey, but that's not really something like it, I don't know, it's like the age, all right, like we'll have, like, I'll use the example, like the Leafs had Kyle Clifford, who played it. On the Marley's all season.

We're talking about a guy that's played in the NHL's entire life and is a two time Stanley Cup winner. He's just playing there because he's not good enough to play in the NHL anymore, but doesn't want to stop playing hockey and he wants to live near home. So, and we liked him. So we just signed him to be like, Hey, mentor the kids.

Yeah, it's kind of a situation where you'll have play a lot of young players coming up, but then some players who are on their way back down. Exactly. Exactly. And then the other thing is the confusion of language, right? Like, I think when you say minor hockey in Canada, the inference is almost always youth hockey.

[00:18:00] Right down here in the U. S. When we say minors, we think of like double a triple a baseball and we think the same for hockey and we would say youth hockey, not minor hockey. So, you know, it's 1 of those language things that can cause some confusion as well. But however you want to label it, I would say that the U.

1. L. Was, uh, at least, uh, 3. Yeah. Tears below the NHL with the exception of a couple of players, uh, and, you know, let's face it. Some of those players were only there because of the lockout. Were they associated then or, uh, rather affiliated with a team, a professional team? I don't believe so. No, not that I'm aware of.

No, the UHL, everything that I've read is they would like corner the market in places say like Danbury and just like other teams that just did not have a professional sports team of any sort and they triggered, well, if we set a team up here. Will be the only show in town. I mean, I believe the U H [00:19:00] L ran for 15 years.

So, which is not a bad run for, uh, one of these types of leagues. Even when they folded just like some of the other leagues that folded some of the franchises get gobbled up by the next tier up, you know, like Kalamazoo still has a, a minor team. I believe, I think there are Red Wings, uh, affiliate, whether they're East coast.

And the, I don't remember, but that sometimes happens too, but you're Chris is bang on. I think they go into markets that like hockey, but don't have a big team around. So like, if the Hartford Whalers were still up in Connecticut, you know, instead of down in Carolina as the Carolina hurricanes, it probably, the Emory probably would have been a market for the team.

Cause they'd all want to go watch Hartford because it's the NHL, but there's no NHL this year because of the. The, the lockout, and then there's no Hartford anymore because they moved down to, uh, to Carolina back in whatever it was. I forget. It's a [00:20:00] real interesting confluence of events that there's this lockout, Danbury, it's kind of in the middle of nowhere for hockey.

And then. Uh, they set up this almost like, uh, they have the money to set up a dream team, even though they're not officially supposed to spend the money the way they do, but we'll get into that shortly. Uh, maybe, uh. Frank, you can set the stage a little bit for the lockout. What was going, what was behind this lockout?

Because I think in a lot of ways that none of this with the trashers or a lot of this wouldn't have happened the way it did if the lockout hadn't happened. NHL lockout. That's an interesting theory. I, I, I'd have to think about it to say whether I agree or not. Um, I do think there's no way that they make a run to the colonial cup with a, an NHL caliber player or two on the roster.

And that made a big difference. So you could be onto something. Um, you know, I don't even [00:21:00] remember. What they were fighting about in 2005, I've been a hockey fan since the mid nineties. And so there's been several labor disputes and, and they're, you know, they're always arguing over money and what the share is and whether or not we should have a salary cap and so forth.

I believe in the 2005 lockout, the hard cap was the biggest issue. There was no salary cap in hockey and the owners wanted it for cost certainty. And, and of course, if you're a player, you don't want a salary cap, right? Because you're. You know, capping the potential earnings of your, of your members, if you're the union.

So they fought about it, drew some lines in the sand and ultimately, you know, one of the reason reasons Bettman gets booed every time he shows up anywhere, the commissioner of the NHL is because he's. Presided over several stoppages and this one killed the entire season and, and that's a pretty big deal.

And so the NHL, they, they delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed, and God, did they get all the way to like December, Chris, before they [00:22:00] finally canceled it, I think, or January. Yeah, it was, it was pretty, yeah, it was pretty bad and it was, um. Especially what they were arguing over. I mean, I mean, there are a lot of the reasons why, like, a league will end up putting a salary cap in, which is essentially what this lockout was all about, was they'll put a salary cap in, and they'll say, because the league, say, the NHL is only bringing in so much revenue, right?

So we can't have the owner spending X amount of dollars or what have you on players and this and that. It's just, uh, In the long run, it's not sustainable. That's the argument. And the other argument is, is that you got a big market team like Toronto or Philadelphia, and they can spend 80 million on players.

And then you get Buffalo who can only spend 35. And so they're at a distinct disadvantage switch. Probably you're with me on this one, Chris. I don't see the problem with that because anytime the flyers wanted a free agent, they could pay for it. Right. So Toronto did the same [00:23:00] thing, but, but it does create an unfair compete.

Right. Yeah. And I, I, the big thing to me personally, the big reason. That the salary cap's in place anyways is because the owners can't stop themselves. That's basically it, right? They'll sign these ridiculous contracts to these players that shouldn't get them and then they end up getting, being stuck paying for them and there's like, I don't want to get into the weeds about how the salary cap works or not, but like It's actually the owners, uh, trying to rein in their general managers, if we want to be more specific, right?

Because the GMs are the ones handing out the contracts and the owners are tired of paying them. But they're the ones signing off on it too, though, right? Sure, sure. They get free agent fever every July 1st and out comes the checkbook.

Steve here again with a quick word from our sponsors. There's also [00:24:00] a big problem with hockey, being that it's international. A lot of times if the dollar versus the Canadian, the U. S. versus the Canadian dollar fluctuates, it can kill the Canadian teams because they have a lot less buying power with their dollar.

When it's when it's uneven like that, that is absolutely a factor. And then the other factor that comes up, uh, is, uh, those teams that are in states that are, that don't have an income tax. So you're attacking another 10 percent on whatever. You know, if you're not paying income tax or whatever, the income tax would be in another state.

So, so there's, there's all these little unfair advantages and I guess they figured we'll put the salary cap in place and everybody's on a even playing field, blah, blah, blah. And it took them a year and they had to fight about it and cancel the season to get to it. And the Danbury trashers ended up being very much the recipients of that.

Bad luck for everybody else because, you know, they landed a couple of players that might have been playing at a higher [00:25:00] level had had, because once the NHL isn't playing those players who want to play, go play elsewhere. Some went overseas, some played in the American league, some played, obviously, one of them came and played in Danbury and that pushes the talent all down another tier.

So guys who are good enough to play in the A, some of those get bumped down to the East coast league. Some of those guys end up in one of these, you know, regional semi prototype. Teams like the, like the UHL. And so it's just a, you know, a, a trickle down effect. And as most trickle down effects go, it's not good for the people that trickles down to at the end.

So, uh, but that worked out good for Danbury because now it's, you said it's a confluence of events. It surely was. I mean, here's a guy who wants to buy the team for his kid, make him the president and general manager. He goes out. And he can get players that he couldn't otherwise have gotten if the situation were different.

And then once he's got those players, he is going to be able to keep them because as you alluded [00:26:00] to earlier, you know, they might be getting a check for whatever from the Danbury trashers, but they're getting a nice fat envelope every week as well. And that is circumventing the rules and they admit it freely, at least.

Two of the players, or no, three of the players admitted it freely during that, uh, documentary. If you remember. And what do you think about that, Chris, that they were getting big, they were that, uh, you, HL did have a cap, a salary cap and a salary structure, but to get these guys on board, they're giving him big, thick envelopes full of cash.

I just think it's, like, I think it's hilarious, right? Like, the players are talking about, like, Jimmy Galante just dropping 10 grand on the table, and, like, there's your signing bonus, and, like, if you do, like, a little bit of research, too, like, Jimmy is, like, hiring, like, their wives and kids to work at the, at the dump.

Basically with no show jobs and plus they're eating steak and lobster [00:27:00] and private cars. I think they alluded to, it sounded like they were putting them up to like their lodging was comped as well. It sounded like, or they got really cheap lodging. That was really nice. I mean, they kind of skirted that a little bit, so it wasn't entirely sure, but that is what they alluded to.

It is.

This is what the mob does to society, like, but like, it's within this hockey context, right? Like, they're circumnavigating the rules. They're, they're not paying their taxes per se. They're, uh, cheating, really, is what they're doing. At the end of the day, that's what they're doing. They're cheating, right? Like, I've joked about it with my friends with, like, the amount of money that, The organization that owns the Maple Leafs and be like, just sign Matthews to Austin Matthews, the big superstar up here and like, just sign them to a reasonable contract and then just, you know, give them, you know, a couple duffel bags worth of cash and, you know, big contract with Boston pizza and you're, you're good to go, you know, but that's, that's, uh, you're, [00:28:00] that's cheating, you're circumnavigating the cap.

You're not supposed to be doing that. They're the rules are in place for a reason, right? It's almost like. And the best it's like, basically, like a no show jobs, right? Where the cities used to be famous. They're still famous for this, but like, local governments are famous for this. Like, the mayor is like hiring their friends to go work for the dump or go work for, um, you know, the drive a.

Say a bus and it's just, yeah, they're on the payroll. They're collecting a paycheck, but they're, you know, they're not actually showing up and doing this job, right? Like it's all it's a kickbacks, right? Which is this is what the mob's famous for is the kickbacks, right? And unless I'm. Mistaking my sopranos history, weren't these kinds of jobs used to show legitimate income and to create legitimate.

Retirement opportunities like 401ks and stuff. Yeah, that, well, that's exactly it. Right. All for a lot of these guys, you can show [00:29:00] that like, Hey, I am bringing in some money and You know, most of the time, it doesn't account for. You know, the vast amount of money that you're showing up. It's like, well, yeah, you work in a, uh, you work in a dump, like, I mean, like, how do you afford this Lamborghini?

But at least you have something on paper showing like, hey, I work here. And maybe you might have to just literally show up to plant once or twice a week or something. You probably don't even have to do that. Maybe once a week, just show up and. Just there so they can be like, oh, yeah, he was at work type thing, right?

When they investigate, but it's it does help when you can have the ability to be like, look, I am actually bringing in money, you know, like, oh, I'm investing in this and this and this, right? Like, as opposed to I believe it was lucky Luciano when they were asking him. It's like. Where did you get all this money from?

You haven't had a job in 20 years. He's like, well, no, I own, I own this restaurant like down the street. And he forgot what the name of the restaurant was. He actually did own this restaurant, but like he, [00:30:00] but like he actually forgot the name of the restaurant and you know, it doesn't look good. Like when, you know, they're prosecuting you and be like, you know, where'd you get all this money?

You like, there's no, you've never had a job. And then there's no way to funnel the money, but, uh, getting back to the, to the story a little bit, and that's that, uh, AJ, he was, and this is a conversation that I'd be really interested in hearing both of your opinions on. Maybe we'll start with Frank on this one.

I find it very interesting that AJ, he was, he loved hockey as a sport. He played it, he lived it, but he also was a huge fan of professional wrestling. And he, he loved the showmanship of that. And he wanted to really bring those two elements together. And I think you see that in extremes in this, but.

Anytime you watch a sport, really, you're looking for both the pure athleticism, but you also want to be entertained as well. Uh, what [00:31:00] do you think about those, those two really competing forces inside of sports, pure athleticism and then fun? I think you said it perfectly. I don't think I could say it any better.

Um, personally, I'm not a wrestling fan at all. I've always been disdainful of it because it's fake. Not that they're not physical, not that it's not athletic, but because it's staged in terms of the fighting and stuff. And. It took me a long time to get off my high horse and, and just recognize that people enjoy it for the entertainment value.

And movies are stage two and I don't call them fake, you know, so, uh, and sometimes things happen in hockey that are staged, you know, like, you know, some of the fights that used to happen, you know, off the, off the buck drop. So I kind of quit being such a jerk about it and realize that. You know, I don't need to, to, to downtalk it in my, in my circle of friends or whatever.

And, and it's just another form of entertainment and it does have a very spectacular element to it, doesn't it? I [00:32:00] mean, it's over the top, it's big, it's loud. It's, it's a, it's a spectacle and. When you bring that to a hockey arena, like AJ did, what do you end up with? Well, pretty quickly you end up with a very full arena, you know, section 102 full of the biggest maniacs of your fans.

And all those folks are paying money to get into the rink. They're paying money to buy a Jersey. They're buying popcorn, beer, hot dogs, you know, um, And everything else that goes along with it. So number one, it's a, it's a, it's, it's great for the community. That's the one thing that struck me about this entire thing was here.

You have a couple of guys, well, Jimmy, anyway, in particular, he's a bad guy. I mean, if you look at the stuff that they had him on tape saying, if he did those things and he was, you know, he pled to some things that he was accused of, he's a bad guy, right? But he's very likable. He's almost like a folk hero in this community.[00:33:00]

And when they create this team, it's something for the community to rally around this huge, this huge event, uh, that's just full of energy and spectacle. And, and they all, they reveled, of course, in being the, uh, being the foil, you know, being the bad guy. What do they call that in wrestling? Chris, the, the bad guy has a different name.

Being the heel, the heel, that's it. Right. They were the heels of the UHL. Were they not? I mean, that, that was very, very, that's exactly, that's exactly it. Right. AJ played that part. He even talked about that. He was trying to play the heel of, uh, You know, hockey really, but the Trashers and he played because he knew that everyone was gonna hate him anyways They think like oh daddy, but you this team you dress dress ridiculous You're you're only 17 and you're running a hockey team and he just played it up, right?

Like it'll like Floyd Mayweather is famous for this, right? Like he had to change up how he boxed because his hands were literally like disintegrating [00:34:00] And so he knew that he was going to play, he was going to fight a style of boxing that was not going to be exciting and just to continue his career. And he knew that people were going to hate it.

So he started creating this persona, the money Mayweather, which is people just pay to watch him fight in hopes of seeing him lose. For a long time, that was it, right? Because everyone just hated him so much. Um, but they were paying to watch. Money, money spends the same no matter why they came, right? Yeah, and as you were mentioning, like, you're not so, like, I would, I'm a huge fan of professional wrestling and I totally get what he was, like, trying to do, uh, with mixing the two of them up, right?

So, anyway, I, We did like an earlier episode on the beyond the big screen, where I kind of went into like the whole history of professional wrestling and we covered the movie, the wrestler too. And great movie. Yeah. That was like kind of one of the crazier scenes in the movie, though, is like when Jimmy brings all the professional wrestlers to AJ's party and it's [00:35:00] like Triple H and China.

And I think The Rock was there. The Rock was there. I mean, when you, when you've got wrestlers in the crowd that I recognize, you're, you're probably hitting the high ones, but you know, I don't know that we truly got. A good picture, a good picture watching this documentary of how crazy it probably was in that arena, because when you're watching it on video and let's face it, it's not the greatest video.

It's not television. It's not, you know, like, like, even like a phone today would probably take better video than, than what they were using there in 2005. But when you're there in person, And you can feel the energy in the, and the spontaneity of the events. It's, it's a whole other level than like what we saw in the, in the documentary there on the screen.

And, and it has a galvanizing effect on, on the community, especially a smaller community. You know, I [00:36:00] mean, I think Danbury's tiny, but it's not a metropolis, right? I'm guessing. Uh, do you know how big it is, Steve? You're, you're from that region. I know I, to be quite honest, I had never even really heard of it until fairly recently, and Hartford's not that big, and Hartford's bigger than Danbury, I'm pretty sure, so it's definitely, and I get the sense that it's sort of a Rust Belt community too, it probably hasn't gotten, uh, it, it's boat didn't get lifted in some of the better times that came along either.

It seemed like a, a hard scrabble town. As of 2021, 86, 000 people live there, so I'm going to guess fewer people possibly in 2005, but even if it was comparable, that's, you know, that's a city, but that's a small city and you get a galvanizing force like this spectacle that was the Danbury trashers. You got a team that's entertaining that is beating the hell out of other people [00:37:00] 3 and 4 times a night.

And they're winning. I think their record was like 44 and 28 or something like that. I mean, they had a, uh, like a 68, 70 percent win percentage, which is in cocky. That's incredible. That's a great percentage. And so. I mean, you're putting the puck in the net, you're putting, you're putting their fist in somebody's face, you know, and it's all spontaneous.

You never know what's going to happen. And it's all occurring in front of a full arena, uh, with all that energy. I mean, I understand why people got swept up in it and, and why it became such a big deal. Uh, but there's another piece to it too. And that is how much money do you think they laundered through that hockey team?

And I mean, that that's a cash business. A lot of the time it easily can be, you know, and, and I have to think they just laundered, uh, just a metric ton of cash during that season. I almost 100 percent guarantee it. That's [00:38:00] exactly what was going on. He saw, like, Jimmy saw an opportunity. I think he, like, legitimately wanted to own a hockey team and he wanted to get it for his son, but he also saw an opportunity.

He's like, oh, this is a way of getting rid of a bunch of this cat. Like, you know, launder a bunch of this money that I have lying around. I 100 percent guarantee you that's what was going on. Yeah, you get the ticket sales were probably cash or a lot of cash back then the concessions like you were saying that is a cash machine right there where now, I mean, now you go to a game and like, where we go to the triple a league and everything is cashless.

You might as well not even bring your billfold with we went to climate pledge arena up in Seattle, which is pretty new. A couple of years old now is all for, uh, yeah. Seattle cracking game. We went when the flyers came to town and my wife was kind of freaked out a little bit. She didn't like it, but basically you just walk into a place and pick out what you want and walk out and they charge your card.

You don't have to, you know, contactless, much less cashless. [00:39:00] And that was a little too big brother for her. She didn't care for it. And I certainly understand that. But, uh, uh, you know, I mean, I, I bet that arena was, uh, yeah. You know, 7, 000 cedar or something like that, and I bet they sold 12, 000 tickets every night when, when the books were done, you know, 5, 000 phantom seats that somebody quote unquote paid cash for, you know, I mean, there's just the opportunities are, are, were huge there.

I think we're going to leave it at that for today. I just want to mention though, the best thing you can do to help us in this podcast is if you enjoy what you're hearing. Tell a friend, tell a couple of friends about the Organized Crime and Punishment podcast so that your friends can become friends of ours.

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