The Danbury Trashers -Trash On and Off the Rink

Title: The Danbury Trashers -Trash On and Off the Rink
Original Publication Date: 10/18/2023
Transcript URL: share.descript.com/view/fGOuaYx9PwB
Description:
In the second part of the Organized Crime and Punishment podcast's two-part episode on the Danbury Trashers, the focus remains on the intriguing story of this minor league hockey team's entanglement with organized crime.
In this episode, the hosts delve deeper into the Trashers' ties to the underworld and the consequences faced by those involved. They explore the team's financial dealings with notorious figures, highlighting how this partnership impacted both the players and the league itself.
The episode also sheds light on the legal repercussions faced by key individuals within the organization, offering a gripping account of their trials and punishments. Throughout, the Steve, Mustache and Frank discuss hockey, law enforcement and the Mafia to provide a comprehensive understanding of this remarkable tale.
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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.
Hey, friends of ours, this is Steve here. This is the second part of a two part conversation on the Mafia and Hockey. I'm joined by Frank and, as usual, Mustache Chris. If you like what you hear, you can go back and listen to part one to get some more context for this episode, or just dive right in. They both work really well individually, or even better as a team.
So let's dive [00:01:00] right in. One of the corollaries to the, to the wrestling aspect of it was the fighting, and anybody who's even semi aware of hockey. Knows that fighting is a part of hockey, Chris, and then we'll bounce it over to Frank. What's your opinion on fighting in hockey? I'll say right off the bat, like it is kind of bizarre.
We're I think it was, uh, there's a clip, there's a famous clip of, like, Joe Rogan talking about hockey, and it's just like, it's the weirdest sport in the world, where, like, they're just playing the sport, and then all of a sudden, people are dropping the gloves, and they're just beating the crap out of each other, and it is truly bizarre, there's no other sport in the world that just, that happens, there isn't, like, I know there's, like, a little bit of roughhousing in football, and once in a while, maybe, people in basketball, they're like, Throw some slaps and maybe sometimes in baseball people will like charge them out.
But like, like a, like a fist fight, like a one on one fist fight that goes on in hockey, like there's [00:02:00] nothing compares to it. And the fact that like, say like happens in baseball, it's like, oh, like that's out of the ordinary in hockey. It's like, no, it's just part of the game. This is what you do. It's, it's, uh, it's interesting, like the history of fighting and hockey from everything that I've read, like really early on.
It wasn't all that common, uh, like it would happen, obviously, right? Uh, you know, like, more frequently than any other sport. It actually, I believe it was around the 60s and 70s is when it really started kicking off where teams like the the Flyers, as Frank will probably tell you about, um, Saw an opportunity where they maybe they weren't as skilled as some of the other teams, but the intimidation factor fighting and the hard hitting, uh, became like a level or so you could bring the basically like kind of nullify this skill and the speed of another team if you beat the crap out of them enough.
And I mean, it works. It's part of the [00:03:00] game, really. There's no way around it. It's just, um, I don't think it's ever going to leave. I mean, I'm quite, I'm, to be honest with you, I'm happy. They've changed a bunch of rules where, and just because the rule changes, the game has gone so much faster. So you can't just have like a guy out there whose, whose only job is to like fight.
There's still a couple of them. I mean, the Leafs just kind of recently signed a guy named Ryan Reeves. He's like the heavyweight champ of hockey right now. But, yeah. He can still play to a degree. He can't play like, not gonna be playing him a ton, but he can still kind of keep up. Um, a lot of like the old school, like traditional tough guys that were, we think of like Ty Domi, uh, you know, that's a Leaf one right there.
He couldn't play today's end. Yeah. Bob, Rob, well, Bob Prober could actually play tmi. was like, Ty TMI was like, I, I don't know how much he could actually play. Uh, um. He couldn't keep up with today's game just because the rule changes, but the fighting it's it's never going to [00:04:00] leave. It's always going to be there.
And the intimidation factor is huge in hockey because I've seen it. I've seen it personally just over the last couple of season with the Leafs where the Leafs are a skill team. They're fast, but a team like Boston, who's not afraid to face wash you, you know, beat the crap out of you, that intimidation factor, it does it.
I don't care what anybody says. It changes how the other team plays. They're less likely to go into the corners. Maybe they're a little scared to go in front of the net. Um, so you need, you need that aspect on your team and the trashers. I mean, I think they went a little bit overboard with that. What aspect of the game, but they said right off the bat, like we wanted a team that was going to beat you up.
And beat you literally, like beat you in the game and they accomplished that. So you would say that it's an integral part of the game. Could you have hockey without the fighting aspect? Well, you do, you do, you do in, in women's hockey, you don't have fighting either. And in [00:05:00] college hockey, it's, it's rare.
And, and the thing is, is it's really two different kinds of fighting. If you go back in history, or it comes to hockey, you know, The further back you go, the less, uh, less safety equipment, the players war, right? I mean, you take off the visors, then you take off the helmets and then off come the shoulder pads and then the shin pads.
And pretty soon you're just down to a pair of skates and, and, and, and some gloves maybe. Right. And, and this entire time from whatever, 19, whenever they founded the league. And even before that, when they were still, uh, professionals playing, there's only one referee. And, you know, there's 10 skaters out there, I mean, there were 12 at one point plus 2 goalies, but now they're, you know, for the longest time, there's been 10.
There's, there's no way 1 referee is going to see everything. And so people took liberties with the stick or, or, you know, speared, hooked, slashed, whatever, uh, the ref isn't going to see that. And if you want to dissuade that [00:06:00] from happening, then you, yeah. You know, go punch the guy in the nose and next time he won't slash you.
And, and I, and I just was kind of a gentleman. It was a rougher time in our history. Uh, and I think people accepted that, that people could have a disagreement and it could end in fisticuffs. Uh, and then at the end of it, they went and sat in the box for five minutes. Uh, if they were …