Former 17-Year-Old GM Of Hockey's Infamous Danbury Trashers Is Back
AJ Galante previous led one of the most infamous hockey teams ever when he was just 17 years old
A couple of years ago, we were all talking about the Netflix documentary Untold: Crime and Penalties, which told the story of the Danbury Trashers, a minor league hockey team that played in the United Hockey League from 2004 to 2006.
While the team was only around for two seasons, the story is one of the wildest in hockey. The team was owned by James Galante, a real-life Tony Soprano who ran a waste disposal company and was known to be a mob associate.
He put his 17-year-old son AJ Galante in charge of running the team, and the younger Galante went ahead and put together one of the toughest rosters a 200 by 85-foot sheet of ice has ever seen, and even brought in the likes of ex-NHLers Brent Gretzky and Mike Rupp, the latter joining the team during the 2004-05 NHL lockout.
It all felt very Slap Shot.
It's a story that gets even wilder than that and ended with James Galante getting in trouble with the law and the team getting in trouble with the league for circumvenitng the salary cap. It's a must see documentary, and film adaptation of the story has even been in the works.
But why am I bringing this up now? Well, because I happened to see that AJ Galante, the former Trashers GM, is back to leading a minor league hockey team in Danbury, Connecticut, this time the Danbury Hat Tricks of the Federal Prospects Hockey League.
That's right! He's back, baby!
I think we all need to keep an eye on the hat tricks this season. I don't know if they'll start with a bang by signing a Gretzky again, but I wouldn't be surprised if Galante had something up his sleeve.
"I am super proud and super honored to be the next GM of the Danbury Hat Tricks," Galante said in a video posted by the team. "This means the world to me; you guys know what Danbury hockey means to me. I am so excited to get to work,"
Congratulations to Galante, who served as a senior advisor to the GM for the Hat Tricks last season, and has now been given the keys to a club that finished last season second in their division.