They're Making A Movie About The Danbury Trashers And It's Going To Be The Greatest Movie Ever
If you’re not familiar with the Danbury Trashers, then your homework right now is to do some research. I’ll help get you started real quick though. The Trashers were founded in 2004 and played in the United Hockey League. The UHL turned into the CHL and then the CHL turned into the ECHL. So the Danbury Trashers were an ECHL team from 2004-06. The team was owned by Jimmy Galante who had built himself up a waste management empire in Connecticut. Jimmy Galante was very much involved with the mob which, if you’re wondering why the Danbury Trashers were only around for a couple of seasons, is why. Anyway, he owned the team but he made his 17-year-old son, AJ Galante, the GM of the team. Already it’s an incredible story, but it only gets better.
In their first season, the Danbury Trashers set a UHL record by racking up damn near 2,800 penalty minutes on the season. Quadruple digit penalty minutes. Just look at the rapsheets on a couple of these guys courtesy of Hockeyfights.com
The Mike Rupp you see toward the bottom there is the same Mike Rupp who you think it is. And that was the thing about this team. Sure, they were obviously gooning it up. But they were also nasty. I mean they had legitimate NHL talent on roster. Hell, they even had Gretzky.
Now granted, it was Brent Gretzky. But that’s still a Gretzky nonetheless. And the team made it to the Finals in their 2nd season in the league. Not a big deal or anything. But yeah, this team was a bunch of animals.
And with a team who racks up 2800 penalty minutes in one season, I’m sure you can imagine what the fanbase was like.
It’s quite honestly one of the greatest stories in all of minor league sports history. And now it’s getting the Hollywood treatment that it deserves. Think Slap Shot meets GOON meets SuperBad considering the GM of the team was a damn senior in high school at the time. It’s a story that needs to be told on the big screen. I just hope there’s a way that we can get Chernin involved somehow so that I can weasel my way into making a cameo appearance. Need to get that IMDB page going.
By the way–the team disbanded after Jimmy Galante was found guilty of racketeering, fraud charges and a whole bunch of other shit that you’d expect to see from a guy who is involved with the mob. There’s a pretty good video on all of it right here. We’ll just disregard the publication it comes from.