It’s The Golden Age Of Documentaries, And This One Puts On The Foil.
There’s been a lot of talk of how we’re in the new golden age of television. It’s true, television has never been better, but that’s been going on for a while now. It might just be time for a new golden age—a golden age of documentaries. Because the latest one currently trending on Netflix, Untold: Crime and Penalties about the Danbury Trashers minor league hockey team, run by a 19-year-old with ties to organized crime, is proof that documentaries have never been better.
Meet the Real-life Tony Soprano
Many people credit the Sopranos with starting the latest run of epic TV programs. How bizarre to think that this hockey documentary influenced the Sopranos? That’s right. Tony Soprano, the gabagool-eating, garbage-company-owning, fiercely-family-defending mobster was inspired by none other than the owner of the Danbury Trashers and subject of this documentary, Jimmy Galante. Galante is a Bronx Tale onto himself. Born in that burrow, he later moved to Connecticut, started his own one-truck garbage company and soon controlled 80% of the market from Connecticut all the way into New York. There are some people (including a few with badges) who think Jimmy had connections with organized crime. Perhaps the autographed photo of the Sopranos hanging on his wall blew his cover. Galante had a history of making let’s say more than generous donations that included a new high school football stadium, a pediatric emergency department at Danbury Hospital… oh, and one more. He gave his 17-year-old son A.J. (yes, the same name as Tony Soprano’s son) a professional hockey team.
Growing up Galante
What’s it like growing up the son of a connected garbage collector? Well, if you look at A.J. Galante, it appears that it was just like the A&E show, Growing up Gotti. We’re talking the Olympic podium of spoiled kids: gold chains, silver spoons, and bronze fake bakes served with a side of diamond earrings. To cap it off, this kid had pro wrestlers at his birthday party. He was literally smelling what the Rock was cooking while opening his gifts—and apparently it was hamburgers because in a recent interview A.J. claims Chyna devoured eight of them during the hour she was there.
The Danbury Donnybrooker
While A.J.’s love for pro wrestling never wanes, he claims it met its match when he was introduced to the cinematic masterpiece, The Mighty Ducks. It’s as if the hockey and wrestling gods reached down and personally chose young A.J. to promote a new sport, Wrestle Hockey. From there A.J.’s hockey career goes full-Tom Wilson. Perhaps A.J.’s rage was fueled by his dad serving a little time upstate, or maybe because his beloved Mighty Ducks’ jerseys were so ugly. Nonetheless, the doc shows footage of A.J. hacking it up in various youth games. He’s blowing up kids in front of the net. He’s stiff shouldering others on the way to bench, and he’s definitely chirping kids Ric Flair-style about being a Rolex wearing, limousine riding, Pauly-D looking, pass saucing, lamp lighting son of a gun, wooo!
Right around this time, A.J.’s dad returns home from the state pen—penalty box—to see his son’s hockey dream end abruptly. While playing defense, A.J. injures his leg lowering the boom into an on-coming player. Later he’s told by doctors that he’ll never play hockey again. On a side note, not to diminish any type of serious injury, but have you seen the Dak Prescott or Conor McGregor footage? People are snapping their legs clean off and playing the next year. If it were Duck’s coach Gordon Bombay rather than Herb Brooks who said, “a bruise on the leg is a long way from the heart” A.J. might have been back out there his next shift. Ok, back to the story. With his hockey playing career in the rearview mirror of his daddy’s BMW, A.J. begins to contemplate his next move. However, dad is already one step ahead. Jimmy, seeing the love his son has for hockey, does the thing any level-headed parent would do. He spends $500,000 buying The Danbury Trashers, and making his 17-year-old kid the president and GM.
Are you DTF?
Still in high school and ready to take the hockey world by the stugots, A.J. summons help from the playbook of MTV’s Jersey Shore. In his first official press conference, he’s in full GTH (Gym Tan Hockey) mode, and wearing his best, dress-length oversized polo and diamond studs. He almost looks like a Mafia Marshall Mathers. But like his Jersey Shore brethren, he’s likable, charismatic and has a pretty damn good eye for talent. Hockey talent that is. While recruiting his team it’s apparent he’s looking for players who are “DTF” as in Down-To-Fight. It’s a scene straight out of the movie Slap Shot. Except characters like Tim “Dr. Hook” McCracken, Ross “Mad Dog” Madison and Ogie Ogilthorpe have been replaced by real life players with equally bruising nicknames and backgrounds.
Brad “Wingnut” Wingfield: Quite possibly the coolest guy in the world, and winner of the documentary. He totaled 496 penalty minutes in just 56 games with the Trashers.
Jon “Nasty” Mirasty: Resembling professional wrestler, Animal of the Road Warriors, Nasty was known for his dyed mohawk and 5’10, 220 lbs. stature. He averaged 8 penalty minutes a game for the Trashers.
“The Nigerian Nightmare:” No, not former NFL running back Christian Okoye, this was Rumun Ndur. However, if those two were ever going to fight for the rights to this nickname, you’d put your money on Ndur every time. He was eventually suspended 20 games for fighting players, officials and opposing coaches.
Chad Wagner: He didn’t have a nickname because teammates were too afraid of what he might do if he didn’t like it. He played three total games and somehow racked up 75 penalty minutes and a lifetime suspension. Reg Dunlop would have been proud.
David “One-eyed Willy” Beauregard: A prolific scorer for the Trashers who had his eye carved out from a high stick during a breakaway.
Brent Gretzky: Yes, the great one’s not-as-great little brother. Brent shared a similar role to Slap Shot’s Ned Braden as a guy who’s “not gonna goon it up for ya.”
Mike Rupp: If you remember, Rupp was a legit hockey star, who two years earlier scored the Stanley Cup clinching goal for the Devils. It was during the NHL lockout that A.J. convinced Rupp to play for the Trashers by handing him an actual duffel bag stuffed with cash.
The Omicioli Brothers: Filing the Hanson brothers role, these beauties can chirp like they’re straight out of Letterkenny and provided plenty of dirty dangles, snipes, and cellys for the boys.
Tommy “T-Bone” Pomposello: We’re pretty sure Netflix hired an actor for this role because nobody could actually be this badass. As the equipment manager he also helped in the opposing team locker room, disconnecting the hot water, hiding goalie pads and pouring sand on the floor.
Welcome to the Jungle
Throughout their two seasons in the UHL (United Hockey League), the Danbury Trashers set the league and the theoretical trash dumpster on fire. Surely not all the games played out like the Hanson Brothers’ first shift, as the film suggests. But according to Richard Brosal, the league commissioner with the impossible task of keeping a lid on the Trashers, they were often up to eight fights a game. In fact, the Trashers dropped their gloves on the very first faceoff of their very first game. In the eyes of pure hockey fans this might have been a turn off. But not for the fans at Galante’s newly renovated Danbury Ice Arena. The booster club, also known as Section 102, were as much a part of the action as the play itself. They created havoc cussing out rival players, blaring loud horns into the player’s bench, and even throwing body bags over the boards during injury stoppages.
A Wingnut Gets his Wings
When it was all said and done, this gleeful group of goons may gave set the league record in penalty minutes, but they also won some games making it all the way to the Colonial Cup finals. And it was the big heart, wicked shot, and powerful fists of Brad Wingfield that led the way. The documentary does a great job capturing on the emotional story of Wingfield and his strong relationship with both A.J. and Jimmy Galante. In a 2004 altercation with Josh Elzinga of the Kalamazoo Wings, Wingfield’s season was cut short when he gruesomely broke his leg from a Elzinga slew-foot (the act of sweeping out someone’s leg.) Fast forward to the 2005 Colonial Cup finals when the Galantes resigned Wingfield, making sure he got his redemption shot at the title. The heavyweight wasted no time, pouncing on the opportunity in the first period. Instigating Elzinga with a cross-check to the back of the head, Wingfield then hammered Elzinga with haymakers until referees finally restrained him. Wingfield retreated off the ice jersey-less but not before pointing to the Danbury owner’s box out of respect. In the end, the Trashers didn’t win the Colonial Cup but they were ready for the next season ahead. All they had to do is beat their next opponent, the FBI.
Cue The Instrumental Portion of Layla By Eric Clapton
Similar to the final act of Goodfellas, but minus the dead bodies rolling around in the back of a garbage truck (which would have been very befitting), the end was near for the Danbury Trashers. Jimmy Galante was the subject of an indictment that included all the charges you hear about in mob movies, but have no idea what they actually mean: racketeering, extortion and tax evasion to name a few. It turns out the feds were doing surveillance of the Genovese crime family and the paper trail led all the way to the Danbury Trashers. Much of the evidence came in the form of incriminating wiretaps. Some of the wiretaps even traced back, oddly enough, to Scrappy, the Trashers trash can mascot who obviously doesn’t know the first rule of being a mascot… don’t talk! Investigators traced a $30k a month fee that Galante paid to boss Matty “The Horse” Ianollo (talk about a great hockey name), and were able to uncover everything from inflated rates for garbage collecting to paying players under the table. At one point the Trashers had a payroll of $750,000, even though the league cap was $275,000.
It’s when the FBI put pressure on A.J. that Jimmy had enough. In the documentary, Jimmy declined to talk about the investigation simply offering up the two rules he lived by, which are exactly the same as those from another Jimmy, Goodfellas Jimmy Conway: “Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut.” Galante pleaded guilty to several charges, ended up forfeiting his ownership in twenty-five trash companies and was sentenced to just over seven years in prison, of which he served four. The 2006-2007 Trashers season was canceled, and eventually the UHL league folded.
But to this day A.J. perseveres. He eventually graduated college, bought into a fuel company, and most recently a boxing gym. The constant promoter and eternal optimist has fist pumping energy that you can’t help but want to be a part of. He’s grateful to the players and fans that made his hockey fantasy team a dream come true. Not only for the hockey fans of Connecticut, but now for all of us who get to watch the insanity unfold in these incredible days of documentaries.
