01x04 - Crimes and Penalties (Danbury Trashers)

[bunniefuu]

I remember getting a phone call.

There was somebody in Connecticut,

a gentleman by the name of Jimmy Galante,

who was putting a hockey team in Danbury.

There were rumors
the guy did things for Danbury

like you can't believe.

He helped with roads,
he helped with schools...

By the generosity
of the Galante family.

Donated to the hospital
for research.

Paid for all of it.

So, I wanted to kinda get to know the man.

I flew in.

Jimmy had somebody bring me to his office.

I'm going through the front gate,

and you see this humongous,
humongous operation.

Fifty, sixty, seventy large trash trucks,

and then these big warehouses.

I'm thinking to myself,
"Where... Where am I going?"

Walk into Jimmy's office.

Yeah, and you know, a nice guy.

Funny as hell. Great stories.

We had a camaraderie
and that good one-upmanship.

And then he showed me
some race cars, trophies,

pictures with government officials,

tax returns, financials, bank statements.

I mean, he was just a real special guy.

Everything was going fine
until everybody was excused.

And at that point,

he proceeded to tell me
that he bought the hockey team

for his 17-year-old son
who's a senior in high school.

And the second he walked in,

I was, like, dumbfounded.

Whoo! Nasty!

What was my first impression?

Looked like a punk.

He looked like a punk.

Got the big, big silver-and-gold chain.

He's got the diamond earrings.

Daddy bought his 17-year-old son
his own hockey team,

and he gets to do
whatever he wants with it.

I made it very clear to AJ.

If you do something
to embarrass this league...

If you do something
to embarrass your team...

Hey! You suck!

If you do something
to embarrass the game of hockey...

Whoa! Holy sh*t!

...you're going to be dealt with.

So don't test me.

Because what you will find,
you'll learn the hard way.

Dozens are charged in one of the biggest
organized crime stings in years.

Among the accused,
a minor-league hockey team

and a convicted mobster.

James Galante deserves prison.

I'll never forget.

Jimmy kind of sat back in his chair,
and he gave me a little bit of a glare.

And AJ looked at me point blank,

and he said, "Mr. Brosal,
you have nothing to worry about."

♪ Stranger's arms ♪

♪ Reach out to me ♪

♪ 'Cause they know ♪

♪ I'm so lonely ♪

♪ Then my mind ♪

♪ Goes back to you ♪

♪ And your sweet love ♪

♪ Sees me through ♪

It was like a scene
out of Star Wars,

when Darth Vader comes through the door.

But that should have been f*cking Jimmy.

Just a scary, scary person.

And I'm a pretty good judge of character,
and, uh, I kinda took a liking to him.

When Jimmy came in...

...I'm not kidding here,
it made your whole body, like, nervous.

Make your as*h*le pucker, man.

When that guy came in the locker room,
you were f*ck'...

You were sh1tting bricks.

Jimmy and I were on the phone,
and he said,

"We're gonna kick a*s this year,
so I hope you're ready."

And I... And I kind of chuckled,

and Jimmy goes,
"What are you laughing at?"

And I was like, "Uh, nothing!"

Over the phone, he had that presence.

Uh...

First, we knew he had lots of money.

He was a really respected man,

but who you try to avoid
all eye contact with him when he was mad.

Just look at you with this nod,
and you'd be like, "f*ck. Talk! Talk!"

Just k*ll us from the suspense.

I mean, are we gonna have cement skates?

I mean, there was
a lot of speculation about, obviously,

where Jimmy came from, what he did.

A lot of speculation, know what I mean?

You start to wonder.

But I sat down with Jimmy,
he had a big photo mounted on the wall.

It's, uh, James Gandolfini.
It's Tony Soprano!

And it's signed, "To Jimmy,
uh, to the real Tony Soprano."

I've heard rumors that they based
The Sopranos series off of this family.

You have Italians,
a trash hauling business.

You have AJ and AJ.

All the guys that hung around Jimmy.

It's, uh...

It's pretty much spot-on.

You know, I'm not an angel.

I've never been an angel.

And because of the publicity
that I've gotten over the years,

a lot of people find me unapproachable.

There were a lot of things
that went on, and, um...

let me just say, I can still look myself
in the mirror every day.

I don't have a problem.

I'm in the trash business.

Got to be a game with me.

I had one truck, had to have two trucks,
then I had to have three trucks.

Next thing you know, you had 50 trucks,

400 employees.

It was the largest trash company
on the East Coast.

It was hard, aggressive work.

We'd collect all
of Northern Westchester County, New York,

Putnam County, New York,
lower Dutchess, New York,

and the outskirts of Western Connecticut.

And it just took off.

That's all I'm gonna say on that.

Yes, I had a lot of money.

But a lot of people in life get fooled.

"This will bring you joy and happiness."

But for me,

it was my kids.

Five minutes to eight
on August 14th.

I can't explain it.

AJ, uh...

Love of my life.

Ready? You ready to go?

I'm gonna get you, little monster!
Bubbles, you see?

Nice horsey.

My father, Lord rest him,
worked two jobs.

I barely got to see him.

- I'm happy.
- You're happy?

I'm happy!

And I said to myself,
I wanna make sure I gave him a life...

Turtle power!

...that was better than... than I had.

I couldn't ask for a better son.

I always believed
that I had a normal childhood.

Every summer of my life was at AWD,
at his yard, in his office.

How much
did you guys extort today?

I was seven years old,

in charge of bringing him
his Dunkin' Donuts every day.

AJ, you just extorted 50 cents
from some poor slob.

My dad would bring me by the hand.
"Meet this guy."

I've known these guys,
and they treated me with such respect.

We'd be sitting all together,
bullshitting.

Talking about life, girls, sports.

I really saw loyalty is everything,
respect is everything.

But when I realized maybe I'm being raised
differently than most kids...

Second grade. Teacher's going around
talking to the kids.

Like, "Hey, what's lessons you've learned?
What have you been taught?"

Joey says,
"Don't take candy from strangers."

Sam said, uh,

"Don't go into someone else's car
if you don't know them."

I was, "You don't rat on anybody
and you always be a stand-up guy."

That's the truth.

I remember my birthday party.

Ten years old,
and I was obsessed with wrestling.

I remember my dad saying, super casually,

"This year,
we're bringing WWF superstars."

My heart... I was... My heart dropped.

It was the most iconic figures
in wrestling history.

My classmates just sitting there like,
"What is going on?"

It's Cal with the unhappy face.

But then something happened
in my life,

and it was a very big turning point.

The Mighty Ducks.

Well, that was the...
the first start of it all.

My dad would always say,
"You can't make it in life on your own.

You need a small group of people
that can help you."

Remember what we learned.
Ducks stick together, right?

Yeah!

He shoots, he scores!

And I remember being like, "Holy sh*t!"

In the middle of the movie,
I knew I wanted to play hockey.

Listen, I don't wanna say
I was disappointed.

You know, I tried to push him
towards football.

Hut!

But, um, didn't work.

Catch the ball!

Oh! Oh!

Somehow hockey...
He says, "I wanna be a hockey player."

Be careful.

Whoa.

Be careful.

You like that, eh?

I don't like it, Dad, I love it!

Next thing you know,

we're out all hours of the day and night
bringing him to the rink.

Oh, yes!

He fell in love with it.

For my father and I,

it was the best thing
that ever happened to us.

Everything was just so perfect.

I started with the FBI back in 1976.

Worked organized crime, the Mafia.

I'm a New Yorker, born and bred,
so I didn't mind that.

My work was on John Gotti.

He was "Teflon Don" during those years.

It took a long time,
and eventually we brought him to justice.

Crime boss John Gotti has been sentenced
to life in prison with no parole.

And, um,

he held a little bit
of a grudge on that one.

The Teflon is gone.
The don is covered with Velcro.

There are several other
mob indictments believed to be imminent.

The Genovese family
is said to be the next one

the federal prosecutors
are working hard at bringing down.

The Genovese family
controlled the trash business forever.

It's an industry that, over the years,

happened to be associated
with organized crime.

The private carting industry

has been controlled by the mob
for decades,

using violence to k*ll the competition.

And associates
of Genovese crime families

are profiting in New York and Connecticut.

So in the late '90s,

Jimmy was a big target
for the Connecticut FBI.

The government knows Jimmy got his start
with Matty "The Horse,"

the capo in the Genovese family.

When Matty "The Horse" Ianniello
was turning over money,

the FBI was watching.

And if they could ever get Jimmy
to sell out Matty,

that's like taking down John Gotti.

So back in '99, the FBI jammed up Jimmy.

Tax fraud.

The bureau wanted to send a message.

You could lose everything.

And that was the beginning of the story.

The summer going into eighth grade,
my father sat me down.

He said, "I have to have a talk with you."

- Well, what is going on here?
- AJ.

I could tell in his face,
this was different.

He said, "I screwed up.
Got myself into a little bit of a jam.

And I have two options.

One, I could go to trial.

But if I don't win,

I might have to go away
for seven, eight, nine years.

Or I can make a deal with the government

and I'd only have to go away
for about a year."

I was like, "Take the year.

As long as you're not
ratting on anyone, take the year!"

He says, "I'm sorry I'm gonna miss
your eighth-grade year,

your eighth-grade graduation,

but I'll be back
when you go to high school."

My heart sunk into the pit of my stomach,
and he left, and...

He... He was... He was on his way.

Anthony James Galante.

When my father went to prison,
everything just went to pieces.

But, you know,
I gotta be there for my mom, and...

I'm the man of the house now.

- Say hi to Dad.
- Hi, Dad.

Give him a kiss.

We all say Merry Christmas.

This is what the tree looks like.

All right. Say goodbye to Daddy.

Just... It just was a tough transition.

In high school,
they're talking sh*t in the bathroom.

"Aw, you saw AJ?
He's such a little daddy's boy."

It affected me.

I had to prove that I'm not a punk.

Now I was a bad guy.

The scumbag that turned on the good guy.

Jesus, AJ!

Oh, AJ. We are gonna have a match.

I loved being booed.
Fans were giving me the finger.

Watch it, Galante!

You know, "f*ck you, buddy!"
And I was just loving it.

Hockey, wrestling...

Oh my goodness!

It was a place for me to show I belonged.

Well, I got out,

and I would come and watch him play.

I was never a big hockey fan,

but I gotta be honest with you,

I was...

amazed

at the fact that he was that tough.

Truthfully, I started to like it.

As a matter of fact, I was in awe.

I was very, very proud of him.

Senior year, there was a fast kid,
he was coming down the boards,

and I laid this kid clean spark out.

Helmet popper.

Beautiful collision.

Felt no pain, just went down.

Tried to get up. Couldn't get up.

I, uh, went to surgery almost immediately.

You know, to this day, I don't even know
the exact diagnosis of it.

I just knew it was f*cked up.

When they told him
he'd never be able to play hockey again,

he was heartbroken.

Just like the ultimate...
the ultimate deflation.

I said, "Well, you know,
let me give some thought to something."

I says, "You know, it may not be the end."

And that's when the brilliant idea
of the Trashers began.

A few days later,
I'm walking in school.

Everyone's looking at me kinda awkwardly.

And I'm just like, "f*ck's going on?"

At this point, I feel like I'm high.

Then a teacher came up to me
and was like, "Wow, AJ!

That's amazing. What's going on?"

I was like,
"What exactly are you talking about?"

He goes, "The team!"

And I go, "The team?"

"Yeah, it's all over the paper!"

I remember turning to the sports,

and it was "Pro hockey coming to Danbury."

All of a sudden,
I'm reading and I'm reading,

and "James Galante purchased a franchise."

Keep going down, and "His 17-year-old son

will be the president
and general manager of the team."

And I was just...

I just...
My mind's just...

- Were you pumped?
- I'm sh1tting my pants.

I'm sh1tting my pants.

On April 1st, 2004,

in front of a crowd of a hundred people

here at the Danbury Ice Arena,

the United Hockey League announced
a new expansion franchise,

the Danbury Trashers.

The president would be
17-year-old AJ Galante.

I'm AJ Galante.

I'm the president of the Danbury Trashers,
and I'm 17 years old.

I feel like the LeBron James of hockey
all of a sudden.

And that was not an April Fool's joke.

April 1st, our first press conference
and our grand opening.

Now, I'm getting a little nervous.

NBC New York, ESPN,
The New York Times came down.

And it's like, "Whoa, you know?
That's big time."

We're so excited to be here today.

And with that,
I want to, uh, turn over the podium

to AJ Galante,
president of the Danbury Trashers.

So, AJ, come on down.

It kinda became
really real to me then.

AJ! AJ!

You know, I had to talk a little, which,
you know, at the time, was tough for me.

Thank you.

Today is truly a great day.

But I did know it was very important
to start with a splash.

You know, really start with a splash.

Right now, I guess,
let's get right to the chase

and introduce our first player,
our captain, our first signed name.

I think everyone knows
the name well by now.

We decided the first player
had to be a big name

to jolt the hockey community
in the Northeast.

It was a no-brainer.

We decided
the first player had to be Gretzky.

It had to be Gretzky,

and that's really
where it technically all began.

Which Gretzky?

Brent Gretzky.

We're just ecstatic to have him.

Everyone, Brent Gretzky.

The younger brother of Wayne Gretzky?

The sportswriters ate it up.

It was like, "Okay, touché, Galantes."
The game was on.

Hockey player Wayne Gretzky
will always be regarded as the greatest.

In Connecticut,
there is actually another Gretzky

trying to leave his mark on the game.

No, it's not the great one.
It's the next best one.

Brent Gretzky!

One of Galante's roles
as president

has been developing the team's identity.

I told the press,
in terms of my vision,

the whole idea of the Trashers,

it's all my loves
in one big freak mix of things.

Pro wrestling...

...and The Mighty Ducks.

We could combine the two.

Naming a team is harder than it looks.

You gotta really think,
and what better to keep it in-house?

My father's
in the waste management business.

Why not the Trashers?
It's a real gritty name.

We want that "bad-boy" image.

Hopefully the evil empire of the UHL.

Growing up, my dad always rooted
for the bad guys in the movies.

Whenever the bad guy would do something,
he'd be like, "Yeah! Yeah!"

Because he was doing that,
I started to do it.

Is AJ as tough as he says he is?

Absolutely.

He's also my boss, so I have to say that.

We wanted to be the home
for that 1% that cheered for the bad guys.

In the FBI office in New Haven,

if we have an undercover operation,

it's given a title or a code name.

In this case,
they came up with the name Pail Rider,

a spin on the Clint Eastwood movie,
spelled differently,

P-A-I-L instead of P-A-L-E,

uh, to relate to the trash, uh, dumpsters.

This was, at the time, and remains,

the largest investigation
I've ever been a part of.

Galante employed
the use of organized crime,

specifically the acting boss
of the Genovese crime family,

to intimidate, threaten,
and keep competition at bay.

At one point, Galante and others
went after a competing truck driver,

kidnapped him at gunpoint,
bound and gagged him,

and set the truck on fire.

The message was very clear.

If you wanna operate in Connecticut,
you're gonna do it by Galante's rules.

So we knew very well who Galante was,

and we were aware
he was going to develop a team.

As far as Galante naming
his teenage son the general manager,

that seemed consistent
with Jimmy's personality.

He did what he wanted.

The Trashers
was a significant development,

and we were monitoring that
very carefully.

I remembered my first day
walking into my new job really, and...

I got very anxious 'cause I didn't
really know what I was doing.

I didn't know the league, the types
of players we were gonna deal with.

Look, the NHL is the pinnacle
of professional hockey.

Then below them, you have us, the UHL.

So you're dealing with a lot of guys
who've been up higher,

guys who've been lower.

I know you haven't played in a while...

And I really needed someone
to help me build this team.

And, uh, slowly,

a light bulb went off.

He was a Danbury legend.

More of a mystique.

And he was my secret weapon.

My middle-school coach.

I just remember this big guy on the ice,

taking the puck from us...

burying sixth and seventh graders
into the boards.

Jesus Christ. I was like,
"This guy is... is a little crazy."

Did I check kids into the boards
when I was coaching them? Absolutely.

Cocaine's a hell of a drug.

But Tommy knew the game.

He had been an equipment manager
for all different minor-league teams,

and his knowledge was very valuable to us.

I knew the product
Jimmy and AJ wanted to put on the ice.

I told them, "I have a player for us

that's gonna turn
this whole thing upside down."

I go into my bag
and I pull out a picture of Brad Wingfield

in an orange jumpsuit, handcuffed.

AJ goes, "What the f*ck is this?"

I says,

"Last month he beat the sh*t
out of six corrections officers."

He goes, "I want him."

Last count, I've had about 17 surgeries.

Broke both my legs. Tibias, fibulas.

Spiral fractures of the ankles.
Cracked vertebrae in my back.

Disintegrated disc.
Couple bulging discs on my upper neck.

Broken my hands. Nine broken noses.

I've lost my front teeth.
300 stitches in my face.

Um, you can see right there.
Lost a finger.

So, you know, that's something
that I lost playing hockey.

Aside from Tommy,

really, the only resource I had
was video games

and Google.

I just became a very big stat geek

and started finding, like, patterns.

Like, where guys were from,
where they would go,

the types of teams they were.

Really look at the numbers,
lines, assists, penalty minutes.

And finally, the patterns introduced me
to my crown jewel.

A Minor League Hockey Legend,

One Eye Willy.

My dream was to reach the NHL one day,

but my first training camp,
it's like a big nightmare.

There was a guy behind me,
and his blade went high,

and it went under my visor and hit my eye.

Right away, I lost sight.

That injury ended my dream
to play in the NHL.

Okay, you got a guy with one eye,

he's on a sh*t team,

who knows he's never gonna go
to the highest level of hockey.

Hey, perfect Danbury Trasher.

One morning, my cell phone rang.

It's AJ from Danbury.

I was so happy

'cause I knew I was on my way for Danbury.

He'd call me from school.

"I got this guy. I got that guy.
I got the other..."

Finally, I asked him,
"AJ, please leave me alone.

Call Tommy Pomposello."

Dealing with agents
is one thing that's very tough.

It's kinda crazy.

Sometimes I feel like I got
a better chance of contacting Bin Laden

than some of these guys.

One morning, I get a delivery.

One of the VHSs, it said, uh,

"Rumun Ndur, the Nigerian Nightmare."

So, just because of that name,

I was like,
"I'mma plug this one in first."

Very WWF-ish.

I was the first Nigerian-born
player to play in the NHL.

But growing up, having Nigerian parents,
they didn't want me to play.

And when I was eight,
my mom said you can do figure skating.

So I told her,

"If I'm doing figure skating,
I'm wearing hockey skates."

But I really got a feel for the footwork,

and that helped me a lot
when I was, uh, fighting later on.

I end up going
onto the hockey database.

Found these two brothers.

All I kept thinking about was Slap Shot.

They have those twins.

And they always seem to play together.

Mike, get off your phone,
you f*cking moron.

No, you talk, and then I talk,

and then we don't talk
when we're both talking.

I always interrupt him.

Uh, yeah, no, obviously when we...

- Sorry.
- You f*ck' idiot, man!

- Go. I'll put it on f*ck' silent. Sorry.
- You think?

Since five years old,

we knew where each other was from day one.

He knew when to get the puck to me.
I knew where his sweet spot was.

It was unbelievable.

T-Bone picks us up at the airport
and says we're going to Jimmy's office.

We pull into a dump,
and I'm like, "What the f*ck?

We're at a dump?"

And then you finally walk into his office,
and you're like, "Where am I?"

There's Jimmy sitting at his desk
with his cowboy boots up.

Jimmy was in meeting with five big guys.

And look scary guys.

We shake hands, and then, boom.
"What did T-Bone offer ya?"

I'm like, I say this amount,

and he's like, "f*ck,
I'll give ya X amount dollars more."

More than double
what I was making in Roanoke.

I said, "That's a ridiculous number,

but if you offer my brother the same,
we'll come play for you."

Throws ten grand out on the table in cash.
"There's your signing bonus."

Pulls out a contract, slaps it down,
and says, "Sign the contract."

I'm like, "Holy sh*t."

I've never had negotiations
go that way in my life.

And, uh, of course, I said,
"Okay, no problem. Thank you."

I turned around, and I said, "Mike,

we are, uh, Danbury Trashers,
uh, from here on out."

So I looked at my wife and I said,
"I guess we're coming to Danbury."

I have a job to do,

and quite frankly,
I don't make any apologies for it, okay?

None whatsoever.

My job as the commissioner
is to make sure that not any one person

thinks that they're bigger
than the league itself.

I don't give a f*ck who you are.

And so, you do have to have
somebody who's there to police.

Now, when they started this bad-boy image,

I called an emergency meeting
with Tommy, AJ, Jimmy Galante.

But it was really AJ, okay?
"We're gonna be bad.

We ain't taking sh*t from nobody,
Commissioner."

"All right, well, that's great,
but I'm telling you right now,

you're going down a slippery slope.

I was like, "Who the f*ck is this guy?"

You know, he's a short guy. Bald and...

But I loved him immediately
'cause he was... he was a ball-breaker.

Meanwhile,
I'm giggling under my breath, saying,

"This guy has no idea what's coming.

He has no idea
who's sitting across the desk from him."

I forewarned them.
Everything was gonna be done proper.

He was a minnow in a shark tank.

Opening night, around five,
they opened the doors,

and I-I felt this enormous wave of...
of pressure.

Are people gonna really like this vision?
This "bad boys of hockey."

And we are live
at Danbury Ice Arena.

Phil Giubileo with you,
and this is Danbury Trashers hockey...

Danbury, it's kinda blue-collar.

It didn't have a heck of a lot going on.

And this is the first professional team
that the city of Danbury has,

so everyone was real excited to see

"Why is a 17-year-old and a mobster
running a hockey team?"

We didn't know anything
about hockey at all.

Sports didn't interest me one f*cking bit.

But soon as you walk into it,

you're feeding off
everyone else's anticipation.

It was a big night.

Senator Blumenthal was there.

The mayor was there, naturally.

State senator's up in the box.

♪ O'er the ramparts we watched ♪

♪ Were so gallantly... ♪

I'm on the bench
before the game even started.

T-Bone brings me a cell phone,

points up to Jimmy's box, and I look up.

Jimmy's got his cell phone just like this.

So I'm like, "Hello?"

And I said, "Brad.

The minute the puck drops,

drop your gloves."

I remember the anthem going,
and I'm just like,

"Let's f*cking go.
Who's f*cking getting it?

f*ck you, coach. Send someone out here.
I'm gonna f*ck you up."

Number 42, Brad Wingfield.

Turn back to watch
the face-off get dropped.

And the guy told me to go f*ck myself.

I was like, "Whoa!"

Wingfield back off,
and they're gonna go right off the draw.

The whole arena...

It just goes silent.

Here come the gloves off.
Helmets are off.

They pull up their sleeves.
It's Watson and Wingfield

to start the game here in Danbury.

But it was go time.
He just started whaling.

I think my mouth
just dropped to my knees.

Hickey and Shaw.

Big left to the face
and another big right.

Then he's connecting
with a series of rights.

They're just whaling away
at each other right now. Big uppercut!

I hit this guy with a straight-right
so hard that he stumbled back,

went down, fell down.

I'm like, "He's out."

Wingfield, a big takedown!

Just three seconds
into the opening period.

So I gave the point.

"There you go, Jimmy and AJ.
I'm here to do my job."

And Jimmy stands up.
He gave the Jimmy nod.

And the place went wild.

Right after Wingfield's fight,

I felt it in my heart.

I said, "We've got something here."

For anybody to say
that wasn't special or emotional,

they have no feeling whatsoever.

When I heard the roar of the crowd,

it was just like... I just...

All these feelings
started coming into me, like...

I felt just such a relief.

Place just went batshit crazy.

Blood all over the place.
It was f*cking mental.

It was a blast.

We end up winning that game,
and I was just like, "Boom. We got it."

Skating away with a 6-3 win.

First game. Oh Jesus.

I happened to be in the arena.

Did I react to it right then and there?

No.

But after the game, made it really clear.

"AJ, if you condone this kind of action,

I will suspend you as a GM.

You won't be able to be
in your own damn building. You want that?"

"Oh, it won't happen again, Mr. Brosal."

Eh, it did.

♪ We could've been anything
That we wanted to be ♪

He had his helmet
popped off his head.

Players down on the ice,

and we have a big pileup of bodies.

Big left to the head on DePalma!

We f*cking dominated every night.
We intimidated every night.

We're just f*cking assassins.

Big left to the head on DePalma!

That's a throw. Is he all right?

♪ We're the very best at being guys ♪

AJ and I, we tried to recreate
what the Flyers had done in the '70s.

♪ No one likes you any more ♪

♪ Bad guys ♪

You get into somebody's chest,
into their f*cking heart, they're done.

♪ Each of us contemptible
We're criticized and cursed ♪

This is gonna be my team's
favorite place to stay.

♪ Malicious and bad ♪

♪ We're the very best at being bad ♪

We had the mentality
that we're gonna beat you,

but we're gonna
beat the f*ck out of you too.

And that was the mentality
of Jimmy and AJ.

♪ We took the easy way out ♪

It was the gangster mentality.

♪ With little training
We mastered complaining ♪

We were family, and Jimmy was the boss.

When I got on the ice,
he'd give you a look, and I understood.

Big Rumun Ndur going at it.
Christ, don't rip his head off!

As long as they gave us
everything they had on the ice,

we would give them everything off the ice.

So we got them
top-of-the-line accommodations.

♪ We're the very best at being bad ♪

We're staying lakefront. Gated community.

This thing is massive.

I arranged for them to have
the best restaurants in New York.

♪ Bad guys ♪

♪ We're rotten to the core ♪

We're eating calamari, steak,
$6,000 dinners.

♪ Bad guys ♪

No questions asked.

♪ We're the very worst ♪

♪ Each of us contemptible ♪

Jimmy wasn't shy to put money
into his team.

Every player
was getting paid under the table.

I'm supposed to say that or no?

It was in a nice little envelope,
but it was, uh...

It was a nice little chunk of change.

You'd always get a Trasher check.

One or two other checks,
and they were different every week.

It was incredible
how many different companies I worked for.

Doesn't take a whole lot to figure out
this being a mob operation.

"I'll give you everything
that you want,

and we need you to win."

Mike Omicioli out in front. Score!

One night,
I scored the game-winner.

Jimmy came into the locker room.

Boom.

10,000 cash on the floor.
We're all like, "Let's go to the bar!"

Danbury knocking off
the top team in the UHL.

David-Alexandre Beauregard.

Twenty-seven goals.
He does this with one eye.

Danbury, the first-place team in the UHL.

It wasn't that he won us over at all.
It was just more that...

- I'll tell you how he won me over.
- Let me finish.

He interrupts me every f*cking time,
this f*cking guy.

♪ With little practice
We made every black list ♪

A glove to the head!

Tries to rip his head off!

♪ We're the very best at being bad ♪

♪ We're the very best at being bad ♪

The newspaper would write op-eds
that it was too violent

and the language was vulgar.

I gotta be honest with you.

I never really cared what anybody thought.

I wanted...

I wanted tough guys.

They knew what they had to do.
They knew what our philosophy was.

And quite frankly, they gave it to me.

You should never take
the game of hockey

and say, "Hey, how can we turn it
into a three-ring circus?"

You're making a mockery out of the game.

You're making a mockery of the league.

AJ! AJ! AJ!

We were the scum of the earth
to the purists of the hockey world.

AJ! AJ!

You don't wanna start that.
I'll suspend you.

Just, ugh...
disgusted with the Danbury Trashers.

But at that time, fighting,
it was a major part of the game.

Yes, AJ. Fighting is part of the game.

Two fights, maybe three.

But eight?

It just doesn't happen.

And so, guess what?
I banned quite a few players.

Wagner going after the bench.

He's trying to attack Coach Potvin!

You manhandled a coach?
You're gone.

Pounding the crap out of somebody.

Taking a two-handed
baseball swing at a player? You're gone.

You go and slam a guy's head? You're gone.

Slashing, spearing,
spitting, slew-footing.

You're gone.

But holy moly, the fans loved it.

It is insanity here
in Trasher town. Everybody on their feet.

She had seven martinis.
She was drunk as f*ck.

And here I am, screaming my head off.

"I'll f*ck' knock
your g*dd*mn blocks off!"

- That's the reason there's a seat belt.
- That was fun!

You'd see guys knocked out cold.

They would bring a body bag,
throw it over the boards.

They'd count the player out.

Body bag! Body bag!

Drew and I were on the bench.
We were all like, "This is f*cking crazy."

They were ruthless.

Fans in Section 102
extra loud tonight.

Section 102
sat directly behind the visiting bench.

Fans in Section 102
blaring the horn.

I mean, you're talking
a whole nother stratosphere of crazy.

Probably driving
Marc Potvin crazy right now.

It is loud.

The second I walked in,

fans from the 102 section

were waiting for me.

Brosal sucks!

Their chants were vulgar, crude,
beyond crude.

The things that came out of their mouths.
You'd just curl your toes.

Brosal sucks!

"Brosal, go home! You bald f*ck!"

Brosal sucks!

But my biggest issue at that point,
quite frankly, was Tommy Pomposello.

He will go down in history as the only

equipment manager
that has ever been suspended

because of his actions.

Tommy, the next time you turn off
the hot water in the opposing locker room,

you will get fined.

Commish, you know, I don't know.

I don't know what happened.
This wasn't my doing.

He was hiding equipment.

Team shows up

- and goalie doesn't have his goalie pads.
- No comment.

- What about the goalie pads?
- No comment.

Supplying teams
with towels to dry off

that were thinner than a paper towel,

and leaving six of them
for the entire team.

And they were doing sh*t like this
every day.

Every day. Every day.

Boo!

Every night was psychological warfare.

Welcome to the jungle indeed.
We got Section 102 here.

We're two seconds into this game.

It's gonna be an interesting night.

It was like a fun house.
Everywhere you went,

there was a possibility
of something going wrong for you.

They did it over
and over and over again,

and I felt like I had been committed
into a cuckoo farm.

Whoo!

Save! Save! Save!

I got two words for you!

Suck it!

New kid in town.
You guys are gonna get trashed.

So, I didn't have to be a rocket scientist
to assume

that something bad was gonna happen.

I can tell you
that the entire time the city of Danbury

was enjoying this, uh, newfound

entertainment venue
and the Danbury Trashers,

the FBI and its partners
were working behind the scenes,

covertly, in secret,

to develop this case against Galante.

Went to the Trashers games.

We were there undercover.

We conducted surveillance,

ingratiating with Galante and others
involved in the criminal conspiracy,

and gathering evidence
through conversation.

As far as the hockey games,
it was very clear.

AJ and Jimmy wanted
to establish themselves

as having a certain
enforcer-type reputation.

Uh, WWE meets Slap Shot.

And it was quite a show.

But the most prominent memory that I have

is all of the drama, the chaos

when Brad Wingfield's leg was broken

in a very violent way.

Out of nowhere,
I heard a pretzel rod.

Just that snapping sound.

Just the most grotesque screaming
that I've ever heard.

This scream like an animal in pain.

And Brad Wingfield is just kind of...
just down.

And the rink just went completely silent.

When you break your leg like that,
you go into shock.

Josh Elzinga kicked my feet out

while pulling my jersey back.

Unbelievably cheap and f*cking dirty.

And I looked down at my feet.

Well, I got one foot pointing backwards,

so I knew
everything's not okay down there.

That's never a good sign.

Wingfield is clutching on
for dear life, it seems.

This is a rough spot
for the Trashers to be in.

When they put him on the stretcher,
I grabbed his hand.

I said, "It's gonna be okay, big guy,"
and he nodded.

Jimmy went into the locker room
and challenged the team.

"That doesn't happen here.

What are you gonna do?"

Winger was a good buddy of mine,
and, uh, I knew his career was done.

And, uh, obviously,

I did what I did after that.

And what happens?

A sh*t show.

Now we're gonna have Tyler Willis

and big Rumun Ndur going at it.

Willis getting pounded by Rumun Ndur.
Rumun Ndur has him in a choke hold.

Big takedown! Big takedown!

I was trying to fight the bench
or any player that would fight me.

Attacking a guy on the bench.

Tom Ditzer took it right to the face
from Rumun Ndur.

I remember I hit a guy,

and I could feel his teeth
through his cheek, like, on my fist.

Just... Just the perfect connection.

The big Nigerian Nightmare
manhandling him right now.

I start hearing a commotion.

I saw my father arguing with the referee,
and I knew that wasn't a good sign.

And the referee, piece of sh*t,

told Jimmy to go f*ck himself.

Jimmy punched this guy
right in his f*cking face.

You don't tell Jimmy to go f*ck himself.

You get into a fight
with an on-ice official.

Jimmy was fined a lot of money
for his actions. Okay?

But what even made it worse
is he got arrested.

I'm a very loyal individual.

It was personal for me.

I considered the team a family.
That's how I see it.

For your owner to do that?

It's not necessary, right?

So, pretty cool.

Very cool man.

That Monday,

some of the employees
at the garbage plant,

they're trying to find out
where Elzinga was from and where he lived.

I'll never forget.

Jimmy came in and brought me
a home address of Josh Elzinga.

Asked me what did we wanna do about it.

So, what did I wanna do?

Winger thought he was kidding.

He thought he was kidding.

If Elzinga, you're listening,
you little f*cking rat,

you're lucky we kept it on the ice.

I wasn't concerned at all.

I knew I'd get to see him again.

There was a lot of media coverage

about an as*ault, reportedly by Galante,

of one of the UHL referees.

It seems very consistent
with the power that he wielded.

At the FBI,
there was a lot of discussion about it.

The FBI was pissed off
at the situation.

Jimmy's back.

Here he is. He's growing even bigger.

The owner of the Trashers,
Mr. Jim Galante.

The city of Danbury
was in love with the hockey team,

and the Danbury paper
covered 'em all the time.

And everybody's
looking up to Jimmy Galante.

Your favorite owner,
Jimmy Galante.

We need everybody to sing along.
Section 102.

Jim truly is a good friend,

and he also was, uh, named
as Italian American of the Year.

He's front and center, flashy,
in your face, flaunting it,

and he's painted as a hero.

A superstar.

Big bad Jimmy.

But the government
knows the real Jimmy Galante,

and we gotta take him down a notch.

We lost Wingfield.
He was the heart and soul of the team.

And lost Rumun Ndur to suspension.

A major fan favorite.

So my father was pissed.

It was different after that.

It was us against the world,

and, uh, it's just like
we had something to prove.

Frankly, we wanted
to shove it up their a*s

by winning the Colonial Cup.

Bottom line, if we win a cup this year,

then all these naysayers
will say what hockey geniuses we are.

My father's come from nothing.

You have to have a certain aggression,
a certain oomph,

to get to where you wanna get to.

I have a lot of that in me. I'm his blood.

Like everybody else that's around me,
he's loyal, and I trust him.

And I remember he looked at me
with those eyes, and he said,

"Get me a f*cking goal scorer!"
And he storms out of the suite.

Today, the National Hockey League
canceled the whole season.

I have no choice but to announce

the formal cancellation of play
for 2004-2005.

With TV ratings slipping

and fewer fans
willing to pay high ticket prices,

a year of quiet ice
couldn't come at a worse time.

The, uh, commissioner of the NHL announced
that the season is totally canceled.

I start thinking, "Let's try to bring in
NHL heavyweight legends,"

and out of nowhere, it just popped.

Wouldn't it be something
if we brought in Mike Rupp?

In 2003, a year before the Trashers
were even a thought,

we went to the Stanley Cup.

Yeah!

It happened
literally right in front of me.

Held in near side by Rupp.

My hairs are standing up. Rupp scored
the Stanley Cup-clinching goal.

He wins the friggin' Stanley Cup.

- Mike Rupp deflected it!
- Mike Rupp erupts again.

You never know
where heroes will come from in a game.

Flash forward a year and a half,

I told my dad,
"It's gotta be this guy, Mike Rupp.

It's been written. I need this guy."

I had no idea what I was getting into.

Rupp, any thoughts
on the lockout?

My agent calls me. He goes,
"I talked to the owner of the team,

Jimmy.

He wants to pay you cash."

And I go, "What do you mean?
What do you mean, cash?"

He goes, "No, like, he...
He literally wants to give you

a duffel bag of cash."

I'm like, "Wait, what?"

Number 16, Michael Rupp.

But when I saw
what AJ was working towards

and how bad
that community wanted them to win,

I'm like, "All right, cool.
Let's, uh... Let's see what happens here."

...ahead to Rupp. He's got clearance.

Out in front, and gets the shot.
He scores!

And Michael Rupp able to net
his second in this first period...

Rupp was the cherry on top,

and my Trashers were finally complete.

We were booming, and we got hot quick.

He's over the line
to the left circle, and shoots and scores!

As the investigation widened,

the undercover was the key

to getting inside
of this criminal conspiracy.

He opened the door for us.

And we were able to establish
the very first wiretap

on Galietti's cell phone.

Richie Galietti, in his own right,
was a very colorful character.

He was Galante's garbage sales manager.

Galietti also served as Scrappy,
the Trashers' mascot,

uh, in costume.

The trash can costume.

Ladies and gentlemen, Scrappy!

But most importantly,
Galietti spoke very freely

in support of the criminal conspiracy
over the telephone.

I will f*cking take
your m*therf*cking eyes out

if you wanna f*ck around, okay?

Do not f*ck Jimmy.

Trust me, I will f*cking destroy you.

From there, we were able to initiate
Title III wiretaps on other cell phones.

- Hello?
- Hey. Hey.

You know that thing on Mill Plain Road?

Yes.

Tell the c*cksucker
that I said, quote, unquote,

"unless he wants a f*cking nightmare,
get that f*cking thing out of there now."

...up to the neutral zone,

up the middle of the line,
up to the circle.

He walks in, shoots, and scores.
Michael Rupp!

And this crowd has erupted.

The Trashers have extended
their record unbeaten streak.

So here it is, NHL lockout,

and we got the hottest ticket
in the world.

They were scalping tickets out front.

Plenty of tickets, guys.

All of a sudden,
Danbury, Connecticut, is on the map.

Who scalps tickets
to a Minor League Hockey game?

With no end to the lockout in sight,

many NHL fans
started looking around for alternatives.

We welcome you to Hell,
the self-described name

for the Danbury Ice Arena.

A packed house.
This one could be a sellout.

I remember John Cena came down.

And it's like, "Holy sh*t."
Like...

We're doing it right now!

The WWE US champion,
John Cena!

Oh my good god.

It's a couple hours before the game,

and there's 10,000 people lining up.

I just keep driving,

and there's a sea
of Danbury Trasher jerseys.

Every night
they were breaking attendance records.

And then the buzz and notoriety
AJ created for the league

was, like, ridiculous.

The radio, the TV stations,
and the newspapers.

Minor League Hockey team,
the Danbury Trashers...

Danbury Trashers.

Team President, AJ Galante.

I'll never forget.
My VP of Media Relations,

he said, "Hey, chief. Turn your TV on."

The United Hockey League's
Danbury, Connecticut franchise

isn't your ordinary
Minor League Hockey team.

And I was shocked.

Growing up,
I watched SportsCenter ten times a day.

And it was just... surreal.

Jimmy Galante and his son AJ
bring a new perspective

to the traditional father-son bond.

So, you know, uh...

quite frankly, I was...

Actually, I was kinda blown away.

And believe it or not, uh,
I gotta give credit to Section 102.

After just riding me unmerciful,

they actually convinced me
to sit with them.

I grew to really respect

what AJ was trying to do
and what he ultimately did.

He was making the league good.

Four months ago,
this facility was a local ice rink,

AJ, just a freshman in college.

Now, a whole franchise later,
AJ's still a freshman in college,

just with a little more responsibility.

AJ Galante!

And let's be honest,
AJ built a pretty damn good team.

The team was good.

We were winning 70% of the games,

so what he did, he was phenomenal at.

Watson to Drew Omicioli.
One-timer, and he scores!

Drew Omicioli...

It's a hard, hard business.
It's a 24-7 type of deal.

Twelve months, 365 days.

But all my life,
I've known how lucky I've been, and, uh...

I owe it all to my dad,
and I just don't wanna let him down.

You've got this 17-year-old kid
who's doing interviews,

and he was just himself.

What you see is what you get.

He just kinda rolled with it.

On a personal level, you know,
I'm starting to really catch my stride.

School, home, Trashers.

It was the most electric thing
I ever felt in my life.

Morlang has another breakaway,

coming up the middle, over the line.

And the shot! He scores!

One of the games, our purpose there
was to secrete a geolocation device,

which enabled us
to follow people or vehicles,

and we were able to do that successfully.

This investigation,
we intercepted tens of thousands

of criminal conversations.

And so, it merited and begged,
demanded a response by us.

I remember my father getting a phone call,
and we were like, "What's going on?"

He said, "I have to go."

There's been a, uh, federal raid
at his yard on White Street.

We searched that whole day,
through the night,

and after daylight the next day.

We seized thousands of boxes of records.

At that point, the covert phase
of our investigation's over,

and the subjects of our investigation
know that we're investigating them.

Jimmy called me.

First thing out of his mouth,
"Commish, it's f*cking bullshit."

"Don't worry. Everything's gonna be okay."

I said, "Jimmy, you gotta keep me
apprised of everything."

Jimmy came to our dressing room
before practice,

and he show us, like, his face
on the front page of the Danbury paper.

And Jimmy was laughing
about it.

He treated it
like sipping a cup of coffee.

"Hey, FBI's gonna investigate me?

f*ck it, let me deal with it."

My dad told us,

"You can't sit and cry into your pillow.

You can't be a bully.

You can't talk all the talk
and then not produce when it counts."

And the landmark game
was Kalamazoo, Michigan,

the team that hurt Brad Wingfield.

The doctor said,
"That's a career-ending injury."

But I'll decide when I can't
play hockey anymore, not the doctor.

I wanted to get back for Jimmy and AJ,

and to get back at Elzinga.

It's time to pay the piper, man.

It's the biggest game
of the season tonight.

Everybody knew
this is a pay-per-view event.

This is a bloodbath game.

All the Section 102 regulars
here in full force tonight.

Winger wants to go after Josh Elzinga.

Preparing the boys,
it was surreal.

It was guys that needed to have a smoke

or a shot of whiskey before the game.

It was like preparing
for an invasion on Beirut.

My dad calls everyone
into the locker room.

We had a TV,
and I had made a motivational video.

And the guys are just...

pumped... pumped for this.

I said, "Are you ready?"

AJ put on a film
with all flames going around.

And the whole team goes, "Yeah!"

Yeah, Josh!

Look at that handsome guy. What a face!

AJ, as a GM,
he's down there trash-talking.

He's got his little f*cking
fight-cam going.

You can't really say too much to him,

or you're gonna
f*cking have to answer for that.

Josh, come on! Can I get a smile?

Wingfield's already taped up. He's just...

rocking, rocking.

I actually had butterflies
'cause I was like, "This is gonna be bad."

Elzinga's posted up
in front of their goalie,

and I remember Wingfield like a shark,
slowly gliding.

All of a sudden, he bit, and boom!

Cross-check right in the face,
and it was on.

The feed "coincidentally" cut off,

so unless you were in the arena
or ever saw my camcorder footage,

no one's seen that brawl.

Holy sh*t!

During the fight,
everything goes really quiet, and, um...

It's almost peaceful.

Everything just kinda slows down
and goes into slow motion.

He had the nice long flow,

so I grabbed a handful of that
and tried to drive his head into the ice.

...in front of the Trasher's net,

and he is just pummeling him
into submission.

Wingfield is punching
with refs on his arm,

and it's like the refs
are flying with the punches.

It was the most beautiful thing
I've ever f*cking seen.

Two warriors going at it, no shirts on.

He finished in a pool of blood.

And suddenly, you can start to hear
the roar of the crowd,

and you can look
and see how excited everyone's faces are.

You suck!

And the fight, just wow. Still blown away.

You suck!

Something I'll always cherish and remember
for, uh, the rest of my life.

The Trasher team
huddling along the left side.

Everybody hugging, everybody happy.
It's the Danbury Trashers...

Honestly, for me,

it was like winning the Colonial Cup.

There was no doubt
that we deserved to win the championship.

To lose it at home...
it just wasn't our time.

Here comes Kalamazoo,
and time runs out.

And the Colonial Cup is won by Kalamazoo.

But so many guys came up to me.
"Hey, I gotta be back here next year."

"You gotta win it all next year."
Um, that's all I kept hearing.

I told my dad, "We gotta finish this.

Next season is gonna be it.
Let's get to work."

I was in the transfer station
on White Street,

just like any other normal Tuesday.

Cars, vans just start streamlining in,

and, um...
that'll wake you up quick.

The Vice President
of Hockey Operations called me.

He goes,
"I need you to go to a quiet place."

I'm like, "Okay. What's going on?"
He goes, "We have a major, major problem."

I said, "What's going on?"
He said, "Danbury."

It sounds like something
out of The Sopranos,

but this was no TV show.

Today, a decades-long scheme
unfolded in real life.

Investigators say they've cracked

one of the biggest schemes
in the garbage business.

One of the biggest
organized crime stings in years.

It started
early Friday morning.

Exclusive video of federal agents

raiding the New Fairfield house
of Jimmy Galante.

Also arrested, the purported head
of the Genovese crime family,

Matthew "The Horse" Ianniello.

Today, US Attorney Kevin O'Connor
unsealing a 117-count indictment.

The waste industry in Connecticut,
it's very clear, has been infiltrated,

we believe and we allege,
by organized crime.

This was a big case,
right in the aftermath of The Sopranos.

People just find, you know,
burning trash trucks irresistible.

They are the muscle behind the threats
of extortion and violence

for those who do not play by the rules.

The reality is
we already had the big fish here.

There was really nobody
beyond Ianniello and Galante,

so we were able to,
really in one fell swoop,

take out the entire criminal organization.

But any time you drag a net
across an ocean floor,

you get a lot more
than whatever fish you're fishing for.

One of the people we indicted
was the mayor of Waterbury.

And then we found our state senator
had gone to Jimmy for help,

threatening to beat up
the boyfriend of his daughter.

Senator Lou DeLuca
pleaded guilty to asking Galante

to rough up his granddaughter's husband.

I understand
that I should not have become friendly

with someone who I believed to be
on the fringes of organized crime.

Then we ended up catching a fish
nobody expected to be under the water.

The paper trail
also led investigators

to a Minor League Hockey team,
the Danbury Trashers.

Money laundering through hockey.

In this investigation,

we learned about the conspiracy
to defraud the United Hockey League.

Galante paid players
much more money than the league allowed.

According to the indictment,
several of the hockey players

on the Danbury Trashers and their spouses

were placed on the payroll
of trash-hauling companies

and got paid for no-show jobs.

Galante brought
the uneven playing field

from the garbage company
to a professional hockey league.

He tipped the scales
in favor of the Trashers.

The issue was,
this really wasn't his money to give.

It was money
he was getting out of a business

that he was running in a very ill*gal way.

And so, we could not allow that team
to continue to operate.

It was just not a choice that we had.

As US Attorney,
you don't do too many unpopular things.

That was pretty unpopular.

There were threats made against me,
as a result of that, from hockey fans.

She started crying.
I was so f*cking pissed.

Think I could've put my fist
through the wall.

Oh, I hate to see her cry for any reason.

It was... too tough for me.

The amount of, uh, pain
that we were going through as a team.

We were heartsick when it unfolded.

My wife and I and our son, Jacob,
packed up and just headed out.

So we weren't...

It just came really fast.
The end was just, like, bang.

We're here to announce an extraordinarily
significant legal action.

James Galante masterminded
a trash-hauling empire.

He enriched himself,

and he financed a hockey team
through his racketeering conspiracy.

James Galante deserves prison.

Well, after the indictment,

I was actually retained by Jimmy
to help the defense team.

It's not that unusual
that an agent retires

and goes to the dark side,
as some of my former colleagues would say.

I told him straight up, no bullshit.

The FBI always wanted Jimmy Galante.

"Back in '99, they didn't get
what they wanted the first time,

and they wanna get you this time."

Ninety-three counts.

Jimmy was facing over a hundred years.

And I know for sure,

Jimmy did not give up any information

against Matty Ianniello.

But Jimmy was concerned
if anybody was throwing him under the bus.

Loyalty is...

You know, you just...

It's a...

It's a great question. Loyalty to me...

What I've found in life

is that the people
that you think will stick by you

don't.

And the people
that you never in your wildest dreams

ever thought would stick by you did.

I was picked up by the FBI,

flown in to...

...to New Haven...

to be sequestered and put in a room

that is maybe ten feet by ten feet,

and they start asking questions.

And they want me to basically tell them
that I feared Jimmy Galante.

I can't tell you how many times,
how many different ways.

"You had to have feared Jimmy Galante."

And every time,
I said the same identical thing.

"The Jimmy I know
is a very loving and caring man."

I have the utmost respect
for Jimmy Galante,

as a man and as a person.

The one thing that Jimmy isn't,
he's not a snitch.

How do you not admire somebody like that?

The US attorney says
the investigation is not over

and there will likely be more arrests.

With respect to this investigation,

I wanna emphasize that it's a very active
ongoing investigation.

Uh, I will put it best by saying there is
a good likelihood of additional charges.

I told him, "They're not gonna stop."
The FBI just keeps digging and digging.

So they back Jimmy into a corner,

use some strong-arm tactics,

and leverage a relative.

AJ was a big part of the, uh, hockey team.

When you start looking at the names
on this indictment,

I'm a lot closer to my father
than this guy.

And, you know, my name's on this.

Say they try to indict me,

use me as a pawn to get my father.

Jimmy was very concerned
about his son.

I told him this would be something
that you really have to think about.

If you go to trial, is it worth the risk?

It became evident
to us on the defense team that, uh,

try to get the best plea deal he can.

So when the federal prosecutor
started looking at AJ,

um, at that point,
did you still wanna fight this?

Well, you know, on advice of counsel,
I'm not gonna answer

any questions
pertaining to any of my cases.

What I will say
is that I'm a firm believer in, uh...

"the sins of thy father,"

and I did not want my son

to be judged by their father's actions.

And I plead guilty to certain charges,

and I received 87 months,

uh, in a federal prison.

A guilty plea tonight from a man
accused of using mob influence

to run a trash-hauling business
in Connecticut.

James Galante pleaded guilty this morning
in New Haven federal court.

He faces
up to seven and a half years in prison

for racketeering
and conspiracy convictions.

After my father went away
and the Trashers disbanded,

I wanted nothing to do with hockey,
let alone the Trashers, and...

People always wanted to talk about it,

and I kinda rejected it,
rejected it, rejected it.

So I worked for a heating-oil company,

driving trucks for nearly ten years.

Settled myself into kind of a boring life,
which is all I wanted.

Um, I just went to work,
did what I had to, come home.

But deep down,
I just didn't feel purpose and meaning

because a lot of my success

has always been based
on opportunities my father gave me.

Honestly, that made me
wanna take a leap of faith.

That's when Champs Boxing Club was born.

It was the first thing
I pursued on my own,

got on my own.

It's my thing.

I'm here all day, every day.

I watch over the fighters,
I manage the pros,

and it took off from there.

From Danbury, 26...

My first fight was an ESPN telecast.

Every fan was booing us,
throwing sh*t at us.

I was like, "Oh my God, I'm back."

Sports Illustrated and ESPN
called "Fight of the Year."

This truly was
the fight of the year. It went 12 rounds.

Whoo!

Danbury, Connecticut.

A big night of boxing is
on tap at Danbury Arena.

It's the first show ever
for promoter AJ Galante.

Fight night in Danbury is May 30th.

2015, and, you know,
I was thinking of my dad coming home.

Wouldn't it be something if, uh...

if I ran a boxing show at the ice arena?

This is something I've dreamed about
for a long, longtime.

This is big for the city, big for me.
It's big for my family.

I got back out,

and I was gone for a long time,
in a sad place.

It was hard to walk into the arena.

I didn't wanna draw
any attention to myself.

I just came in like any other fan.

They're a little awkward.

They don't know what to say to you,
and I understand it.

I was running around
that whole night.

My father and I
didn't get to have five minutes

to kinda take in that... that experience,

which is sad, but it's the nature of it.

The biggest problem that I had

is that I thought
I could pick up where I left off,

not realizing...

they've moved on.

They still love you, but...

I missed out on ten years of their life.

Since the Trashers folded,

we've never sat down
and talked about the team,

which is strange because it was so much
the fabric of our life for a while.

- How are ya?
- Love ya, big guy.

You know what I found here? Look at this.

♪ We could have been anything
That we wanted to be ♪

We didn't have
a ceremonial goodbye for the Trashers.

♪ It's not too late to change ♪

Oh boy.

But Section 102
is having a reunion in Danbury,

and they have no clue we're coming.

It's been 15 years,

so this was gonna be special.

♪ We could have been anything
That we wanted to be ♪

♪ Yes, that decision was ours ♪

♪ It's been decided ♪

♪ We're weaker divided ♪

♪ Let friendship double up our powers ♪

When I saw that Jimmy smile...

Give me a second. I just...

I hadn't had a lump in my throat like that
in a long time.

He did his time,
and he did it like a f*cking man.

He did it like a Trasher.

Like a Danbury Trasher.

♪ We could be the best
At being good guys ♪

♪ Flowers on the earth ♪

♪ Who can even guess
How much a real friend is worth? ♪

I got a story I just have to say.

Jimmy, AJ.
Yeah, my wife started playing hockey.

I went out and got the goalie stuff.
Been a goalie ever since.

♪ No doubt about it
It must be worthwhile ♪

It's in my will that I'm gonna be buried
in my Trasher jersey.

How's that for being a fan?
I'm not even bullshittin' you.

I should've brought the wills with us.
That might be a little creepy.

♪ Yes, that decision was ours ♪

Hey, a big shout-out to Section 102
of the infamous Danbury Trashers.

Hey, guys.

I just wanted to let you know,
14, 15 years later, in Las Vegas,

and I would be remiss
if I didn't tell you,

good or bad,
you'll forever be in my memories.

He's my best friend on earth.

This has been the best ride
I've ever had in my life,

having my brother by my side.

After games, um...

- When we win...
- When we lost though...

- You f*ck' keep f*ck' interrupting me.
- Sorry.

You know what? f*ck it.

- I'm not talking about it. Bye.
- Sorry.

Even nowadays, I could be outside
of Madison Square Garden,

and someone will be like, "Rupper?

I remember you with the Trashers."

I'm like, "Wait, what?"

You know, like, I won a cup
ten minutes down the road, too,

with the New Jersey Devils.

♪ Being good guys ♪

♪ Flowers on the earth ♪

With Jimmy,
never got a chance to say goodbye.

We thought it was gonna go on
for years and years, and... it didn't.

That's someone
I'd have liked to have kept around

and had in my life forever,
for the rest of my life.

Like, just...

He's just an awesome guy.

Like, I love Jimmy.

I heard you're looking
for an a*s-whooping.

How you doing, big guy?

You look like you're gonna cry.
What's the matter?

I'm not really a crier,
but maybe today.

That night, people came up to me
and told me stories about the Trashers

that is completely bullshit and wrong,
but I'll never correct them.

I let them interpret the story
how they felt it.

♪ You give a little love
And it all comes back to you ♪

And I started to actually appreciate
the appreciation people had for the story.

I realized you can't hide from your past.
You have to embrace it.

Storytelling 101.
Good guy wins, bad guy loses.

The bad guy's not supposed to win,
and we were the bad guys.

The Trashers were two guys
who wanted to raise hell and take over.

Another big right
to the head from Mirasty...

We were renegades.
We were rebels. We were outlaws.

You suck!

We were...

the bad boys of hockey.

♪ We're the bad boys of hockey ♪

♪ Somebody's getting trashed tonight ♪

♪ Blow the whistle, drop the puck ♪

♪ The visiting team is out of luck ♪

♪ The evil umpire, don't give in ♪

♪ It's our house, we play to win ♪

♪ We're the bad boys of hockey ♪

♪ Somebody's getting trashed tonight ♪

♪ Bodies eject right off their feet ♪

♪ Fans erupt out of their seats ♪

♪ Center ice, the gloves are shed ♪

♪ Penalty box is full again ♪

♪ We're the bad boys of hockey ♪

♪ Somebody's getting trashed tonight ♪

♪ No surrender in our minds ♪

♪ We're taking this to overtime ♪

♪ Twine ripples in the light ♪

♪ Another victory tonight ♪

♪ We're the bad boys of hockey ♪

♪ Somebody's getting trashed tonight ♪

♪ We're the bad boys of hockey ♪

♪ Somebody's getting trashed tonight ♪

♪ We're the bad boys of hockey ♪

♪ Somebody's getting trashed tonight ♪