The Danbury Trashers – Skating on Thin Ice

Title: The Danbury Trashers – Skating on Thin Ice
Original Publication Date: 10/11/2023
Transcript URL: 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 …