In a nod to waste management he named his team the Trashers; the logo was a garbage can armed with a hockey stick, the Zamboni resembled a trash truck and the mascot was called Scrappy. During a 1994 junior hockey game he was on a breakaway when he caught a high stick under his visor. But for the Trashers, there was a third game, although neither Jimmy nor AJ knew about it. "It comes right from the top.". ", In their box above center ice the Galantes heckled refs and sometimes pelted opposing players with Skittles. Throughout his busy professional career, he has also participated in numerous hockey schools around the country. drives his white Mercedes more than three hours to White Deer, Pa., where Jimmy is serving his sentence at the Allenwood Federal Correctional Complex. Tampa Bay fans still include him among their grievances: a wasted pick. What happened Josh Elzinga? A Cree from Saskatchewan who sometimes sported a multicolored Mohawk, he stood barely 5'10" but had a chin of granite and relished punching above his weight class. Many signed with the American Hockey League, the league directly below the NHL, pushing AHL players down to teams in the UHL. Others started formally, proposed and accepted in the way of czarist-era duels: One morning, as AJ was driving to schoolhe was by then a freshman at Manhattanville College, in Purchase, New York, a 40-minute commute from New Fairfieldhe heard Barry Melrose talking smack about the Trashers on ESPN Radio. As AJ explained it to me: It happened at dinner. One day in November, an employee at the Ice Arena was proud to show the building until he was told his visitor was interested in writing an article on the Trashers. Featured in the NETFLIX documentary Untold: Crime & Penalties, the story of the Danbury Trashers relives the short and tumultuous history of an old United Ho. Established 1996 -- Celebrating Our 25th Year . "It was loud," says A.J., "and security was very, let's just say, flexible." He's crazy.' ), The Trashers finished the 200405 season with a 44297 record, which put them in the playoffs. The FBI had sent an agent undercover to pass himself off as a rogue salesman and befriend the men around Galante. After snapping a few, Brenda invited Vogels friends to take some shots on her. It turned into a brawl. Says Andy Paproski, a lifelong resident of Danbury (pop. Timo Meier's fantasy hockey value trends up after the New Jersey Devils acquired him. In the spring of 2003, while playing for the New Jersey Devils, Rupp had scored a game-winning goal in the Stanley Cup finals. All Rights Reserved. He graduated from Manhattanville with a business management degree in 2008 and bought into a New York City company that sells heating oil and diesel fuel. showed off the aggressively down-market style the Trashers brought to the UHL. He went online to find the main switchboard number for the Roanoke Valley (Va.) Vipers, left a message and eventually made contact with his counterpart. I first heard it from a father on the sidelines of a Little League game soon after I moved in. In 1980, after the Houston Oilers barely missed a trip to the Super Bowl, Coach Bum Phillips gave their fans a famous pep talk. (The video was inconclusive.) ", THE TRASHERS finished their inaugural season 44--29, and their second year unfolded much like the first: a lot of winning, a lot of fighting. On Oct. 15, Jimmy began serving his time. He'd already played 12 seasons of pro hockey: a total of 13 games in the NHL, followed by years of wandering the minors. Latest Fights Date Players Videos 03/01/09 R. Sexsmith ( EVI) vs. J. Elzinga ( CBZ) 3rd Period 18:55 Watch 11/24/06 M. Versteeg-Lytwyn ( KAL) vs. J. Elzinga ( PHF) 1st Period 12:37 Watch 03/12/06 J. Elzinga ( KAL) vs. D. Van Drunen ( MUS) "Right from day one, they've said they wanted to be the bad boys of hockey, the most hated team, the Evil Empire," Marc Potvin, coach of the Adirondack Frostbite, one of the Trashers' rivals, disapprovingly told the Toronto Star in February 2005. But even Wingnut had nothing on Chad Wagner. No slow dissipation for the Trashers, no aging and decline. Asked by email whether there could be a sequel, a Danbury Trashers II, Galante responds, "Anything is possible! Hes working to turn Danbury into a boxing meccaup there with Oxnard, California., Galante got out of prison in 2014. If Micahs short careerhes currently 10 years oldwere, God forbid, to come to a sudden end, Id gladly enlist a mobster to buy him a team so he could still have a future in hockey. A.J. He posted a 28 wRC+ in the month of August, meaning he was 72 percent worse than the average MLB hitter. It was four years to the day from the Trashers' first game. However, hed been to prison for tax evasion. Important: An official team/league url or a team document must be provided for us to update player stats. AJ filled out the roster with a mix of has-beens and might-bes. Still, the joy of playing the sport makes her feel, in her own words, on top of the world, far outweighing any pain she has endured. Severely injured by a terrible cheap shot from an opponent, Winger is able to rehab his broken leg and get his revenge exactly 367 days later.The film footage is sort of grainy (unless you watch the documentary for some unique angles), but until this film, the audio from the home broadcast of the Danbury Trashers has never been available. (VOY: "Shattered") Following the loss of the USS Voyager, Johnson was devastated, but he held out hope that Janeway and the rest of the crew were alive longer than most people did. Get access to our unique free agency lists and many more premium features, Drafted 2001, 4 #48 overall by Cedar Rapids Roughriders in the USHL Entry Draft, Drafted 2000, 8 #157 overall by Windsor Spitfires in the OHL Priority Selection. In keeping with the menacing nickname they gave themselves, the Trashers dropped their gloves at every opportunity, gleefully racking up penalty minutes. The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? He paid the funeral costs of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq and donated $200,000 to a nonprofit that provided financial assistance to soldiers serving overseas. "Frank would have been a hell of a Danbury Trasher," A.J. They led the league in penalty minutes. The Trashers' marquee player was Brent Gretzky, Wayne's kid brother. "We're probably not going to want to participate," he said haltingly. A.J. Danburys equipment manager would soak the Trashers jerseys in Crisco before they played the Frostbite so the opposing goons couldnt get a firm grip. The players exchanged looks of confusion. I sit in Section 102 and let the other parents have it. - Premium Design on your profile page (optional) Galante, then a freshman at Manhattanville College in Purchase, N.Y., introduced himself as team president. He has ties,' " says Brosal. Wagner was apologetic, and A.J. Greg St. Clair, the fan who accompanied his wheelchair-bound wife to games, marked the occasion by getting a tattoo on his left calf of Scrappy the mascot shooting a puck emblazoned with the letters fbi. starts innumerable sentences, "My dad always says.", Usually so engaging and candid, A.J. With a Premium subscription, you'll get access to over 30 tools, features and benefits. That's all we needed to hear. Cortisone shots help her deal with frequent elbow pain. We're here to win.". "Al Davis, he was a wild man with a team full of outlaws, and that's how I wanted to be. You have to understand, Dave MacIsaac, who played 62 regular-season games for Danbury, told me. Winger Frank (the Animal) Bialowas, a former runner-up for Mr. Manitoba, was not much for impulse control either. Not a subscriber? John teaches all levels of private and group lessons. His job was to be the Kevin Costner to Brent Gretzkys Whitney Houston. They were the cream of the UHL, one of its best teams and a pet project of hockey celebrities: The franchise was owned in part by the former NHL coach Barry Melrose and the ESPN broadcaster Steve Levy. And that wasn't all. "I didn't know s--- about hockey either," volunteers Greg, a propane tank repairer. Though he started with no contacts in the sport, often relying on Google to find the main phone numbers of other teams, A.J. ", A.J. Asked what hes up to these days, he said, Enjoying life.. Hockey Fights is an entertainment site with no direct affiliation to the National Hockey League, its teams, or NHLPA. AJ knew the sort of team he wanted: skill plus muscle, skaters plus goons. At home they took to the ice to Welcome to the Jungle, by Guns N Roses. One of the featured players, Brad \"Wingnut\" Wingfield plays a significant role in the film. The 2004 05 NHL lockout was a labor lockout that resulted in the cancellation of the National Hockey League (NHL) season, which would . pursues his new sports passion, boxing management. It was a different day of hockey., Life for the Trashers was life on the road, going from small city to small city. Galante had contributed to DeLuca's campaignsand those of many Connecticut politiciansbut this was personal. They were always pulling them out late, clearing the bench, fighting and celebrating. We would yell down during warm-ups, Come on, youre going to be skating for us next year! And theyd look at me and rub their fingers, and Id reach in my pocket and pull out my wallet, and theyd start laughing., Beauregard was one of my favorites, AJ said. Thirty-two other individuals, including Matty the Horse, were charged as part of the investigation. Torres said he lost confidence at . The Galantes hired J. Todd Stirling, a son of former Islanders coach Steve Stirling, as the inaugural coach. "The camaraderie with the Galante familythe laughs, the dinnersit's sad," Pomposello says, his voice catching. One night, he got into a shouting match with a stranger who turned out to be the visiting teams general managerthe result being a call to AJ from Richard Brosal, the UHL commissioner, followed by a short suspension. "People would make comments: 'Aren't you afraid of him? We only use official stats. Originally from the Metro Detroit area, Craig grew up playing youth hockey in Michigan within the Detroit Little Caesars organization. Most teams rode in a rickety, Partridge Familystyle bus. If asked why they hadnt made it, theyd tell you no one had ever really given them a shot. He had skipped an afternoon class to pick up Rupp. After he was released on $1 million bond, he was asked whether he had any comment. In the indictment filed by the U.S. Attorneys office, Galante was charged with 72 counts, including extortion, witness tampering, and racketeering. "Honestly, a lot of it was getting so close to a championship with the Trashers but not winning. Wagner had once set a West Coast Hockey League single-season record with 503 penalty minutes. "Then everyone would ask for the check so they could be there for face-off. (Galante denies having had this conversation.) Jimmy Galante purchased an expansion franchise in the United Hockey League, the equivalent of Double A baseball. We had 10 goons! Nothing.. The NHL bars players who are blind in one eye, so Beauregard was consigned to a career in the minors. The rowdiest spectators were cordoned off in Section 102, directly behind the visitors bench. In the late 1990s Galante had been sentenced to a year and a day in a federal prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion. He ended up reaching over the bench and grabbing the Adirondack coach, trying to pull him over the boards. He reportedly spent more than $3 million to expand the rink from a 600-seat bandbox to a 2,500-seat showplace called the Danbury Ice Arena. Predictably, Wingnut went after Elzinga, administering a considerable beating and triggering another near riot. ", HAVING A son named A.J. Maybe thats why I became obsessed with this story: It connects our little home rink with an epic of the human hockey condition. Typical New York Rangers or New York Islanders fans were in the position of heroin addicts whod lost their supplywhich is how they found their way to the Trashers. Every great team needs a great rival. said of Beauregard. After taking swipes at various players, he grabbed Potvin, the Adirondack coach, and knocked him down. ", Jimmy expects to be released this summer. made connections over the summer with agents, scouts and middlemen who could deliver that goalie from Manitoba or that playmaker from Quebec. In 2004, this meant buying a minor-league-hockey franchise and installing it at the local youth rink, the Danbury Ice Arena. - EP Contact Book listing of your profile (optional) Now and then, he liked to make an elaborate gesture, something attention-getting. He reportedly spent more than $3 million to expand the rink from a 600-seat bandbox to a 2,500-seat showplace called the Danbury Ice Arena. November 24, 2006. Maybe because Im Italian and in the garbage business.. Section 102 became a subtribe whose members had nicknames like Capone and Jackass. He currently resides in Southwest Florida with his wife, Wendy, and their two children. 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