May 11, 2023 • 34 mins
AJ Galante is a kid growing up in a small city in Connecticut where his dad Jimmy is a pretty big deal. Desperate to find a way out from his dad’s shadow, AJ falls in love with a sport that would come to define his future. But not in the way he expected. And not without the intervention of his father.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Novel.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
It's early December two thousand and four, another sleepy day
in the small city of Danbury, Connecticut, not far from
the New York state line. Cold out, slate, gray sky.
Not a lot going on for Greg Sinclair.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Life as normal.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Here's when it changed.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
I was loading up a propane truck and the driver said, oh,
you should have been at the game last night. This
guy named Wingfield got his leg broken in seven different places.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Greg stopped loading. What was this driver on about? There
was no baseball or football last night. Who was Wingfield?
Speaker 4 (00:54):
The bone popped out, bled, spurred it all over the place.
They had calling extra cops. A place was a mob scene.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
A mob scene in Donburry.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
That's peak, a curiosity that just sounds hyper and nuts.
You know, I like something hyper and nuts and a
little off center.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
The driver continues, Dunberry has a hockey team.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Now, the trashers at the arena downtown, everyone's talking about it.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Greg has to check it out.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
They had a game the next night, and I thought
maybe I will.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
So the next evening, Greg and his wife, Brenda arrive
in downtown Danburry.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Deep night. Brenda weaves her wheelchair through groups of.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Noisy fans wearing baggy black T shirts covered with blue
and silver logos.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Greg tries to keep up through the crowd.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
They've never seen this part of the city looking so busy.
They passed through the stadium's glass doors and into a
packed lobby.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
You could smell beer, some sweat, you could feel the excitement.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
The place was a static.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Grabs a beer at the bar and they find their
inside seats. It seems like the whole city's here.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Like you know, very well to do business people and
they all seem friendly in blue collar such as myself,
all coming together.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
All coming together for blood.
Speaker 5 (02:31):
And we are live at the Danbury Ice Arena. Hi, everybody,
filt you, Balano with you. And this is Danbury Trashers Hockey.
The Danverury Trashers are back on all nights and revenge.
It's on Danbury's mind here tonight.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
The referee walks onto the bright white ice and drops
the puck.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
The game is on.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
We've got some pushing and shoving. It cut of ice
as the Trashers with their heavy hitters out there.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Within seconds, a full on fight breaks out on the ice.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Two players pull off their gloves and square up to
each other. The Trasher player starts swinging, reading the proverbial crop.
His shirt has his.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Jerseys all ripped up over right now. He ripped it
up the rest of the wair, which the women love.
I don't blame on my guests. Good looking dude, And
he circled back around and started beating them up all
over again.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Hounding away with a couple of uppercuffs. Take take Can,
Take Take care.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Date night is off to an electric start.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
The place went out of their minds.
Speaker 5 (03:40):
That one's breaking loose here and thrasher.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Pad screaming their heads up.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Us included Greg and Brenda had heard that hole keepers whiting.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
But wow, just bad shit crazy, so to speak.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
One a night here in Danbury. And this isn't even
halfway through the first period.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
In the stands, Trash's fans are doing their bits of
power the teams towards victory.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
They how insults at the opposition.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
I'll try to censor myself in case we got little
ears listening on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
But you know what I mean. We were laughing our
asses off.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
But Prentice laughter is cut short.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
All of a sudden, one of the players shut the
puck and it come over the wall, landed right in
her beer. Didn't even get one sip out of it.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Once the puck is back in the ice, the game
continues and the trash Is start to take control.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
Rat to get it back and they're David wins a
rabbit up the.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Pas shoots the puck right into the net. The Trasha's score.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
The fans on their finger at the Dandurray Ice are
right up.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
This place is going, Canada's places jumping up and down,
beers being thrown in the air. My wife would be screaming,
then the guy's scream on thee'd scream together and she'd
scream loudly and then get almost hear it simultaneously as
one unified voice.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
One unified voice, Danbury behind the Trashes At the final buzzer,
Greg and Brenda stare at each other.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I know I'll never forget it.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
The Dimboo trashould change everything forever.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
But what Greg and Brenda didn't know in that moment
was that none of the carnage and the arena was accidental.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
The wild energy of the night was.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
The result of a series of careful calculations and part
of a much bigger unfolding story. Had Greg and Brenda
glanced up at the owner's box that night, they might
have caught a glimpse of the two behind it all.
The man in his early fifties, composed well dressed in
(05:54):
a dark suit, kind of scary looking, and beside him
a teenage boy, just a kid, really big, cheeky, grin
diamond earrings, glistening full of bravado. A father and son,
Jimmy and Aj Gallante. Heroes or villains, depending on your perspective.
(06:17):
This is a story about their team, the Danburry Trashers,
probably the most violent hockey team ever. It's a story
about the lengths they'd go to win before they lost
it all. I'm Claire Crofton from the teams at Novel
(06:39):
and iHeartRadio. This is the Fighty Cucks Game One, the
Gallantes of Danburry.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
All right, so where are you taking it?
Speaker 6 (07:05):
Well this, I'll tell you my favorite pizzeria in Danberry's
coming up.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I first met Aja Galante last summer. I hopped up
into his white SUV for a tour of Danburry.
Speaker 6 (07:18):
I used to hang out kind of in this parking
lot area.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
AJ's in his late thirties now, he's lived in this
city his entire life knows it like the back of
his hand, a hand that's held a lot of slices.
Speaker 6 (07:31):
There's a lot of good pizza around here. I got
two favorites, but this is number one or one A
or one B, whatever you want to call it. That's
really good pizza. If you like pizza, that's really good.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
We drive through Danburries downtown. It's pretty with wide tree
lined pavements. It's a warm summer day, but the streets
are deserted. I noticed that a lot of the shops
are closed up too.
Speaker 6 (07:55):
What the hell there used to be a big pizzeria
there now that's gone.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Geez.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
We drive past the Hat City Market with its blue
warning the red brick Hat City Alehouse in case you're wondering.
Danbury is sometimes called the Hat City, but the last
hat factory closed here in the nineteen eighties. It is
still a city that makes things, but peering out the
car window wouldn't exactly call it a bustling center of
industry or a bustling center of anything.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Really.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
I mean, Danbury, it's not a huge city. There's so
many opportunities to leave here if you wanted to. You're
so close to New York, You know, a lot of
kids I grew up would.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
End up moving, but not Aj.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
I always want to just stay where I'm from. You know,
it would be too easy to just go to a big,
big city and just kind of get lost in the mix.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
There in Danburry, Aja definitely did not get lost in
the mix.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
He and his family stood out.
Speaker 6 (08:55):
So we're about to come up on the road I
grew up on.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
That's why I've come here to hear their story, A
story that starts in what looks like a very comfortable
house on a quiet suburban street that was a drive
past like twenty years ago. What would I see.
Speaker 6 (09:14):
We'd be running up and down a driveway. There'd be
a million kids over there. And we used to wrestle
like professional wrestling site. We used to wrestle on the
l yard. Then there's a pool on the side there.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
AJ Galante grew up here with his mum, Rosanne, his
sister Candace, and his dad, Jimmy. It was perhaps Jimmy
that loomed to the largest in his life. For Aj
and for the city of Danbury. Jimmy was kind of
a big deal.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah, mom, where are you?
Speaker 6 (09:48):
It's my pleasure to be here. In this evening to
recognize jim.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
This is a childhood home movie. Aj played me from
a beautiful sunny day when a crowd gathered at a
charity baseball game to thank the family for their donations.
Speaker 7 (10:03):
There was just a few things that they have done
for people in the greater day, and they at the
mic Ages mum is being congratulated by the city's mayor
and the state senator.
Speaker 5 (10:14):
Because of the fund that Roseanne and Jim set up.
Speaker 6 (10:18):
Some of those men and women, some of those families
are better able to afford just the basic needs of
existence to the family. And that's not doing that.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Jim or Rosanna Ages did.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Jimmy was not shy about spending money. The children swing
at the hospital, a new playground, the football stadium for
the high school. The Glantes paid for it.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
All. Jimmy's money came from trash. He ran a waste.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Management business, or more accurately, he ran a multi multi
million dollar statewide trash Empire Automatic waste disposal or aw
Jimmy had built it from the ground up and in
Danbury He's consumed or driven out much of the competition.
(11:09):
And trash was more than a job. It was a dynasty.
Jimmy's own father had run a small garbage business, and
aj was expected to be the next in line. Trash
was his destiny from birth.
Speaker 6 (11:24):
It kind of was, hey, a j O get involved
with the trash company. I didn't really have how do
I explain this. I just knew I was going to
go into the business. You know.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
This all meant that when he wasn't at ribbon cutting
events held in honor of his family, Ajay was down
at the garbage yard with his dad, school holidays, most weekends.
Speaker 6 (11:46):
From five years old, I was just sitting in a
chair watching him. So you're absorbing like a sponge all
this stuff, you know, not doing anything. I just sit
there and watch him and watch how he conducted business as.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
A were Jimmy the boss at work in his lavish
office lined with signed photos of movie and sports stars.
He'd notice when Jimmy wasn't at home with the family,
he would change.
Speaker 6 (12:13):
At home, he was dad, like you know, a normal dad.
I guess I only have one dad. And then outside
of the home, he was still dad, but it was different,
like you know, at home I could joke with him
funny ha ha, he you know, all that stuff but
I knew, you know, outside of that, it was just
a little different.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Even at this young age, AJ started to realize that
to some people, his dad could be kind of scary.
Speaker 6 (12:42):
Yeah, I mean intimidating and very respected, you know. He
he powerful.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Age told me how one day when he was with
his dad at the yard, Jimmy turned to him and
pointed to a driving one of the forklifts.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
He'd be like, listen, I'm gonna bring this guy in.
You fire him.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Little AJ immediately bursts into tears.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
I thought he meant to light someone on fire, and
I remember crying because I was like, I don't want
to light somebody on fire. You know, I'm only five.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Jimmy tried to reassure him. I wanted to sack him,
tell him he's lost his job.
Speaker 6 (13:21):
And I'm like, I'm I going to tell a grown man.
And he was joking, obviously, but I didn't even like
playing around like that, you know, because this was wrong.
I guess I get the sensitivity from my mother.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Jimmy never actually did get Aj to sack an employee,
but these kind of jokes.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Made it clear that his dad knew how to intimidate people.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
A useful trait when running a multi multi million dollar
statewide trash empire. I guess, and in time AJ started
to appreciate his dad's bad boy attitude.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Soon when he wasn't eating pizza or hanging out at
the garbage yard, he was watching ww wrestling and always
rooting for the villain.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
I always knew when the bad guy was coming out,
like he had a presence. He or she, and everyone
wanted to see him lose, but at the same time
they liked them in a weird way. It was strange.
It was a strange psychology.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
One childhood birthday, Jimmy arranged for two of AJ's wrestling heroes,
The Rock and Triple H to come to his party.
Two of the world's biggest wrestling stars showing up to
some backyard in Danbury. That was the power of Jimmy Galante.
But for AJ, that flashy show.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Of influence was a double edged sword, because as much
as he loved wrestling.
Speaker 6 (14:42):
You know, you start to wonder, you know, are people
going to look at me different.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
I'd never wanted that AJ would worry about how other
people would judge him. Because of his parents' public displays
of wealth and influence.
Speaker 6 (14:54):
Kids don't respect that. You look out and you see
all your buddies out there, and you know, you start
to get paranoid, like are they jealous? Oh, you're spoiled.
You know, we're on the stage and they're in the stand.
You know. I used to be very embarrassed of what
I had ashamed in a weird way, and I think
that would bother my dad because he's like, you should
(15:14):
be proud, but he doesn't understand. I didn't come from
his environment, so I was always an underdog with that.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Like all kids, AJ was striving for independence, for a
path of his own. One day in October of ninety two,
when AJ was six, he was sure he'd found it.
Speaker 6 (15:40):
I remember it was a rainy weekend and my mom
was just like bored in the house. He's like, let's
go to a movie or something.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Jimmy's at work and for once he hasn't bought AJ
with him.
Speaker 6 (15:50):
She took us in a movie theater and I remember
the only thing playing for kids at the time was
The Mighty Ducks.
Speaker 8 (15:56):
From what Disney Pictures, he's a hotshot attorney who's never lost,
forced to coach a hockey team that's never want.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Keep swinging and maybe I'll give him a cold.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
The Mighty Ducks is a story about children's hockey team,
a bunch of dorky misfits.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
At first, they suck.
Speaker 6 (16:12):
I'll try to teach them how to win. You think
losing is funny?
Speaker 5 (16:15):
Well then at first, but.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Spoiler alert, they end up being coached to glory that winning.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
When I watched this movie, I don't know what it
was about the movie that I just I was like,
oh wow, this looks awesome. Mighty Ducks.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
When I watched The Mighty Ducks, I loved it too.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
It's a classic nineties underdog tail about finding purpose in
friendship and teamwork, and it's surprisingly sweet. But that's not
what drew a Jay. And he loved the hockey.
Speaker 6 (16:50):
The aggressiveness, lots of hitting, the fighting, the craziness.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
AJ left the cinema that rainy October day, buzzing and
desperate to life more. And as he did, he realized,
holy shit, hockey is wrestling on ice.
Speaker 6 (17:07):
You couldn't see that anywhere else in any other sport,
you know, I mean football, you have hitting and stuff,
but hockey was such a fast paced game that was it.
I was just like, oh, man, I want to do this.
This is my calling.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Right here, I think for Aja, hockey had one other
crucial ingredient.
Speaker 6 (17:25):
No one else around here was doing it. My classmates,
everyone was playing football, baseball, basketball. No one else really
seemed to like hockey at the time. So I was like,
you know what, I could stand out doing something different.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Hockey could be AJ's way to step out of his
dad's shadow, to do his own thing, to shine triple
age on skates, the rock of the rink.
Speaker 6 (17:48):
It just clicked, you know. It's like everyone kind of
has their thing as a kid where something just clicks.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
But little did he know even without hockey, his dad's
shadow wouldn't be around for much longer because Jimmy Galante
was having trouble with the law. That's coming up after
the break. It's the summer of ninety nine. Aj Galante
(18:22):
is thirteen years old. His buddies are spending long, lazy
days cutting loose. But Aj he's at the garbage yard
with his dad, Jimmy.
Speaker 6 (18:31):
The summer going into my eighth grade. I was there
every day. Basically, we were at his office and he
just called me in and we're eating pizza or something.
I think I think he was trying to soften me
up with pizza.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Jimmy looks directly at AJ and tells.
Speaker 6 (18:46):
Him straight, hey, listen, that he made a mistake with
some tax stuff and I should have paid a little
more than I did. Unfortunately, we can't resolve it, so
I may have to go to prison for a year,
but I'll be back.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Jimmy had just been convicted of tax fraud and was
about to start a year long prison sentence. This news
would have broken most kids, but AJ says to him,
it didn't seem like a big deal.
Speaker 6 (19:13):
You know, even a day without your father, you know
who's been in your life, your whole life. You know,
it's tough. But even at young ages, even younger than
eighth grade, my father would always tell me how it
was and prepare me, like, hey, listen, you know I
screwed up. This is what I did, and I'm gonna
probably pay for it. And I was at least prepped.
You know, it was never a surprise with my father.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Jimmy had talked with AJ about how one day the
cops might come knocking.
Speaker 6 (19:39):
You say, listen, you know if this happens, this may happen.
You know what I mean, he always prepared me, and
sometimes things he told me happened, sometimes it didn't. You know,
some people may think that that's a little much for
a young kid, but honestly, looking back, I'm glad.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Of course AJ did miss his dad, but at least
he still had this sport that had become his passion.
By this point, he was a regular at the nearest
rink to Danbury, just over the state line, and he
was getting a reputation. When AJ put on his pads,
his helmet, laced up his skates and glided out onto
the ice. He was not afraid to put his body
(20:16):
on the line, and that's how he met a kindred spirit.
Speaker 8 (20:20):
My name is Thomas James Pompaslo Junior, otherwise known as
T Bone in the hockey world and also you know
in the streets. I am fifty three years old, six '
two two forty and I'm a scorpio. I'm single, I'm
ready to go.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
T Bone is an absolute giant, rarely seen without a
fat cigar hanging on his lower lip.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
He has his own nickname tattooed across his body.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
It's about five six inches. Letter ring goes across the back.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
When he first met AJ. Tommy t Bone.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Pompouseello was known for being a tough, no nonsense coach,
part because he'd trained the American Armyes hockey team. In
the mid nineties, he was running training clinics for promising
young players.
Speaker 8 (21:08):
Those kind of clinics you usually find out who's got
it and who doesn't, and who wants to learn, who
doesn't want to learn. And I just, you know, I
remember seeing this kid on the ice.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
AJ was smashing into players on the ice, picking himself
up with a shake of the head and doing it
all over again, his laugh echoing across the ice.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
T Bone skated up. He wanted to see what this
kid's deal was.
Speaker 8 (21:34):
He wanted to be a goaltender. And I convinced them
to get out of there, you know, And he started
skating up front, and you know, we hit it off.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Even back then, AJ liked to hit here, as in
smashing opponents against the forwards so down onto the ice,
perfectly legal in hockey. It sounds perfectly painful to me.
Speaker 6 (21:53):
But AJ tough as fucking nailsheir kid.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Over the next few years would help AJ hone this
style of play.
Speaker 6 (22:03):
I realized when I got into high school, I wasn't
going to be a big goal scorer, so I decided
I was going to dedicate my time to really just
keeping the other team from scoring, and athletically, I was
playing more and more, and I had a growth spurt,
and I was dominating the league at that one point,
and it was just everything, everything I wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
By the September of two thousand, Jimmy was released from prison,
back running his trash empire. Life was getting back to normal,
except now AJ was living his Mighty Ducks hockey fantasy.
And when I look at the photos of AJ as
a teenager, he certainly looks happy, confident, at least like
(22:48):
most teams in the early noughties, he also looks quite ridiculous.
I'm not trying to be mean here, like I'm also
a child of that era, and like so many of
my school photos, the kindest thing you can say is
they're off their time.
Speaker 6 (23:02):
We wore everything so big. I mean, my shirt would
probably be down to below my knee, big jeans, big pants, shorts,
I'd be wearing a hat that was too big. I
feel like I screwed up my body temperature because I
was always so hot. I had so many layers of
clothes on me.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
The Backstreet boys have a lot dance for if you
ask me. In some of these photos, he's giving the
camera some attitudes, a bit of a trout p out.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Both his ears are pierced.
Speaker 6 (23:29):
From the outside. Looking in. Without talking to me, you'd
probably think I was a punk or a bad kid
the way I dress. You know, I think people you
know you judge a book by its cover.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I think I recognized the kind of kid AJ was
from my own school days. A bit of a class clown,
but popular, loved by those that knew him, and I
rolled by some that didn't.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
He didn't care about the haters.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Though he was a bad boys star of the high
school hockey team.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Life was pretty good.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
But A J had no sense of what was waiting
for him out on the ice. That's coming up after
the break?
Speaker 6 (24:21):
What a to go in.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
The final stop on my tour of Danbury with AJ
is the Ice Arena. It opened here at the turn
of the millennium, although it was much smaller bout then.
We head inside and brought to the edge of the
brilliant white ice. We're greeted by a very welcome, cool
blast of air. There's a junior league practice on that day,
(24:56):
kids of a similar age to a J when he
was playing for his high school.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
They're soaring across the surface.
Speaker 6 (25:03):
You know what I love about hockey. It's got the
best sounds, you know, the skates grinding the ice, the
pucks on the sticks, the pucks hitting the boards. You
could close your eyes and kind of have an idea
of where things are going.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
I've got to tell you, the first time you see
hockey in person, it really is something. The skill and
the speed of the players. A J always talked about
the aggressiveness, but all.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I can see is the grace.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Players tilt as they weave across the eyes like figure skaters.
They move at speed and then stop suddenly and change direction.
Sometimes in Unison, Starling's putting on a show.
Speaker 6 (25:54):
It doesn't translate on TV. You have to really watch
in person to really understand just how hard of a
game it truly is. These guys are on not even
a quarter inch blade on ice. You know, you're wearing
ten to fifteen pounds of equipment, and just the skill
level is just incredible.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
It's really impressive watching the kids whiz past us. But
it must be starring. Bittersweet feelings for Aja given the
story of asked him to tell me. It's two thousand
and four, AJ senior year. His team have a game tonight.
Speaker 6 (26:36):
You go to school during the day and you just
know you're playing at night. That day of school is
always weird because you're not really concentrating on school. You're
thinking about, you know, the game.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
AJ and his teammates are height when they finally arrive
at the rink.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
They kit up white jerseys.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Black hockey pants, shin pads, mask guards, helmets, pregame pep
talk from the coach, fist pumps.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
The team glides out onto the ice. Their opponents are waiting.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Players line up primed, The puck drops from the referee's fingers.
The game is on, the swish and scrape of blades
in the eyes, the cheers of the crowd rising from
the stands. At first, things are going well for AJ's team.
(27:29):
They're dominating.
Speaker 6 (27:31):
My mom used to say she always knew when our
team was on when she heard the passes hit the
sticks and it has a distinct sound, and that's when
she knew, oh, this is gonna be a good game.
They're on today.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Pup to stick stick to puck, but then things start
to slip.
Speaker 6 (27:49):
No one had possession of the puck, and I was
after it, and then one of their guys was after it.
I just end up launching into them, another clean, beautiful
head actually knocked his helmet off.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
The two teenagers lie motionless on the ground a hush
fools over the arena.
Speaker 6 (28:11):
I didn't feel any pain or anything, and I just
remember getting up and my right skate blade at the
bottom of my skate he got stuck into like a
little groove in the ice, and I want to turn,
and my right leg didn't really turn with me.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
And that's when the adrenaline starts to wear off, or.
Speaker 6 (28:30):
The pain just started rushing to my knee, and I knew.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Something was wrong, seriously wrong. AJ Fools. Medics rush onto
the scene.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
AJ's loaded onto a stretcher out into an ambulance.
Speaker 6 (28:44):
An hour drive to the hospital. You know, you're trying
to like keep your leg up.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
It was painful, not just painful, devastating. At the hospital,
the doctors tell him his season's over, he'd never play
hockey again, and in that moment, he understands there's something
much more serious happening.
Speaker 6 (29:10):
What hurt me the most was I knew that once
I stopped playing hockey, my youth was over. Once hockey ends,
you're working, You're at the yard. You're not going to
be playing sports again. You're going to work, and that's it.
Things will never be the same again. That was it
(29:32):
for me.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
All that independence he'd fought for, built up since he'd
sat in that cinema at age six, watching The Mighty
Ducks over in a flash. After surgery, in a couple
of weeks bed rest, AJ returns to school on strong painkillers.
The prankster has lost his swagger and gained a couple
(29:58):
of crutches. He hobbles in to the building had bowed.
He shuffles down the hallway and stops.
Speaker 6 (30:06):
Everyone's looking at me. And you know when you walk
into a room and you feel people like looking at you,
you know, you could feel it. And I'm like, was
there something on my face? Why is everyone looking at me? Like?
This is weird?
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Hej shrugs and then stops again.
Speaker 6 (30:20):
My science teacher at the time came up to me
and he said, AJ, congratulations, this is amazing, This is unbelievable.
And I'm like, what are you talking about? He goes
to team, you and your dad are starting this hockey team.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
AJ skips class to find a copy of the day's paper,
and on.
Speaker 6 (30:41):
The front page is a picture of my dad saying
that he's bringing professional hockey to dan Berry. He's gonna
put his son in charge of the team. And I'm
like dumbfounded. I'm in total shock. I'm numb. I'm like,
this is the craziest thing I ever heard in my life.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
His dad has told the whole city he's making AJ
the president of a pro hockey team.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
A quiet panic descents I'm seventeen.
Speaker 6 (31:12):
I know how to manage teams on video games, but
I don't know how to do it in real life.
I'm a kid.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
When the school day is finally over, AJ heads home fast,
well as fast as he can.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
In his current condition. Anyway he needs answers.
Speaker 6 (31:36):
I go home and my dad would come home every
single night seven point thirty on the die.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
The door opens, Jimmy comes in, but he says nothing,
just sits down to eat, same time they do every night.
Speaker 6 (31:49):
We just sat there, quiet, awkward and just ate dinner.
Nobody said anything about the newspaper article. I didn't say
anything to him, he didn't say anything to me.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
The rest of the evening plays out in the same
awkward silence. Eventually AJ goes to Bird, but that might
he can't sleep.
Speaker 6 (32:06):
I was just staring at the ceiling, and you know
when you're just restless, you can't sleep. All these thoughts
are going in my head, like I can't do it.
It's too much pressure. I don't know what I'm.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Doing that He did know one thing.
Speaker 6 (32:21):
My dad, when he wants to do something, he doesn't care.
He's like, you know what, I want to do this?
He had a vision and he was hell bent down it.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Hell bent.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Once Jimmy Galante has decided he's going to do something,
the adventure is in motion and Jimmy is driving.
Speaker 6 (32:43):
It's like a rocket ship going off. From there, it's nuts.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
AJ better buck up.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Jimmy's going to make him the most famous teenager in hockey.
Aja might not be steering the rocket ship, but he
was going to be at the center of it all,
spearheading a new identity for the Hat City. It's time
for AJ to tap into his on ice aggression to
live up to his punk reputation to make the most
(33:12):
badass hockey team on the planet that's coming up next
time on the Fighty Pucks. The Fighting Pucks is produced
(33:35):
by Novel for iHeartRadio. For more from Novel, visit novel
dot Audio. The series is hosted by me Claire Crofton
and produced by me Joe Wheeler and Amalia Sortland. The
executive producer is David Waters. Story editing from Max O'Brien,
Mitherly Raw and Austin Mitchell. Our field producer is Bebett.
(34:00):
Our fat checker is Darnia Suleiman. Our hockey sensitivity reader
is Nikil Desai. Production management from Scharie Houston and Charlotte Wolfe.
Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander, Additional engineering
by Daniel Kempson. Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters.
(34:23):
Original music composed by Eric Phillips. Willard Foxton is creative
director of Development. Special thanks to Sean Glynn Katrina Novelle,
David Vassman, Sean ty Tone and beth Anne Macaluso
Speaker 3 (34:50):
Novel
Novel.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
It's early December two thousand and four, another sleepy day
in the small city of Danbury, Connecticut, not far from
the New York state line. Cold out, slate, gray sky.
Not a lot going on for Greg Sinclair.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Life as normal.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Here's when it changed.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
I was loading up a propane truck and the driver said, oh,
you should have been at the game last night. This
guy named Wingfield got his leg broken in seven different places.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Greg stopped loading. What was this driver on about? There
was no baseball or football last night. Who was Wingfield?
Speaker 4 (00:54):
The bone popped out, bled, spurred it all over the place.
They had calling extra cops. A place was a mob scene.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
A mob scene in Donburry.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
That's peak, a curiosity that just sounds hyper and nuts.
You know, I like something hyper and nuts and a
little off center.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
The driver continues, Dunberry has a hockey team.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Now, the trashers at the arena downtown, everyone's talking about it.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Greg has to check it out.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
They had a game the next night, and I thought
maybe I will.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
So the next evening, Greg and his wife, Brenda arrive
in downtown Danburry.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Deep night. Brenda weaves her wheelchair through groups of.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Noisy fans wearing baggy black T shirts covered with blue
and silver logos.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Greg tries to keep up through the crowd.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
They've never seen this part of the city looking so busy.
They passed through the stadium's glass doors and into a
packed lobby.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
You could smell beer, some sweat, you could feel the excitement.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
The place was a static.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Grabs a beer at the bar and they find their
inside seats. It seems like the whole city's here.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Like you know, very well to do business people and
they all seem friendly in blue collar such as myself,
all coming together.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
All coming together for blood.
Speaker 5 (02:31):
And we are live at the Danbury Ice Arena. Hi, everybody,
filt you, Balano with you. And this is Danbury Trashers Hockey.
The Danverury Trashers are back on all nights and revenge.
It's on Danbury's mind here tonight.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
The referee walks onto the bright white ice and drops
the puck.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
The game is on.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
We've got some pushing and shoving. It cut of ice
as the Trashers with their heavy hitters out there.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Within seconds, a full on fight breaks out on the ice.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Two players pull off their gloves and square up to
each other. The Trasher player starts swinging, reading the proverbial crop.
His shirt has his.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Jerseys all ripped up over right now. He ripped it
up the rest of the wair, which the women love.
I don't blame on my guests. Good looking dude, And
he circled back around and started beating them up all
over again.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Hounding away with a couple of uppercuffs. Take take Can,
Take Take care.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Date night is off to an electric start.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
The place went out of their minds.
Speaker 5 (03:40):
That one's breaking loose here and thrasher.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Pad screaming their heads up.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Us included Greg and Brenda had heard that hole keepers whiting.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
But wow, just bad shit crazy, so to speak.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
One a night here in Danbury. And this isn't even
halfway through the first period.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
In the stands, Trash's fans are doing their bits of
power the teams towards victory.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
They how insults at the opposition.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
I'll try to censor myself in case we got little
ears listening on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
But you know what I mean. We were laughing our
asses off.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
But Prentice laughter is cut short.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
All of a sudden, one of the players shut the
puck and it come over the wall, landed right in
her beer. Didn't even get one sip out of it.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Once the puck is back in the ice, the game
continues and the trash Is start to take control.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
Rat to get it back and they're David wins a
rabbit up the.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Pas shoots the puck right into the net. The Trasha's score.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
The fans on their finger at the Dandurray Ice are
right up.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
This place is going, Canada's places jumping up and down,
beers being thrown in the air. My wife would be screaming,
then the guy's scream on thee'd scream together and she'd
scream loudly and then get almost hear it simultaneously as
one unified voice.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
One unified voice, Danbury behind the Trashes At the final buzzer,
Greg and Brenda stare at each other.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I know I'll never forget it.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
The Dimboo trashould change everything forever.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
But what Greg and Brenda didn't know in that moment
was that none of the carnage and the arena was accidental.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
The wild energy of the night was.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
The result of a series of careful calculations and part
of a much bigger unfolding story. Had Greg and Brenda
glanced up at the owner's box that night, they might
have caught a glimpse of the two behind it all.
The man in his early fifties, composed well dressed in
(05:54):
a dark suit, kind of scary looking, and beside him
a teenage boy, just a kid, really big, cheeky, grin
diamond earrings, glistening full of bravado. A father and son,
Jimmy and Aj Gallante. Heroes or villains, depending on your perspective.
(06:17):
This is a story about their team, the Danburry Trashers,
probably the most violent hockey team ever. It's a story
about the lengths they'd go to win before they lost
it all. I'm Claire Crofton from the teams at Novel
(06:39):
and iHeartRadio. This is the Fighty Cucks Game One, the
Gallantes of Danburry.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
All right, so where are you taking it?
Speaker 6 (07:05):
Well this, I'll tell you my favorite pizzeria in Danberry's
coming up.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I first met Aja Galante last summer. I hopped up
into his white SUV for a tour of Danburry.
Speaker 6 (07:18):
I used to hang out kind of in this parking
lot area.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
AJ's in his late thirties now, he's lived in this
city his entire life knows it like the back of
his hand, a hand that's held a lot of slices.
Speaker 6 (07:31):
There's a lot of good pizza around here. I got
two favorites, but this is number one or one A
or one B, whatever you want to call it. That's
really good pizza. If you like pizza, that's really good.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
We drive through Danburries downtown. It's pretty with wide tree
lined pavements. It's a warm summer day, but the streets
are deserted. I noticed that a lot of the shops
are closed up too.
Speaker 6 (07:55):
What the hell there used to be a big pizzeria
there now that's gone.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Geez.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
We drive past the Hat City Market with its blue
warning the red brick Hat City Alehouse in case you're wondering.
Danbury is sometimes called the Hat City, but the last
hat factory closed here in the nineteen eighties. It is
still a city that makes things, but peering out the
car window wouldn't exactly call it a bustling center of
industry or a bustling center of anything.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Really.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
I mean, Danbury, it's not a huge city. There's so
many opportunities to leave here if you wanted to. You're
so close to New York, You know, a lot of
kids I grew up would.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
End up moving, but not Aj.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
I always want to just stay where I'm from. You know,
it would be too easy to just go to a big,
big city and just kind of get lost in the mix.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
There in Danburry, Aja definitely did not get lost in
the mix.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
He and his family stood out.
Speaker 6 (08:55):
So we're about to come up on the road I
grew up on.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
That's why I've come here to hear their story, A
story that starts in what looks like a very comfortable
house on a quiet suburban street that was a drive
past like twenty years ago. What would I see.
Speaker 6 (09:14):
We'd be running up and down a driveway. There'd be
a million kids over there. And we used to wrestle
like professional wrestling site. We used to wrestle on the
l yard. Then there's a pool on the side there.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
AJ Galante grew up here with his mum, Rosanne, his
sister Candace, and his dad, Jimmy. It was perhaps Jimmy
that loomed to the largest in his life. For Aj
and for the city of Danbury. Jimmy was kind of
a big deal.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah, mom, where are you?
Speaker 6 (09:48):
It's my pleasure to be here. In this evening to
recognize jim.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
This is a childhood home movie. Aj played me from
a beautiful sunny day when a crowd gathered at a
charity baseball game to thank the family for their donations.
Speaker 7 (10:03):
There was just a few things that they have done
for people in the greater day, and they at the
mic Ages mum is being congratulated by the city's mayor
and the state senator.
Speaker 5 (10:14):
Because of the fund that Roseanne and Jim set up.
Speaker 6 (10:18):
Some of those men and women, some of those families
are better able to afford just the basic needs of
existence to the family. And that's not doing that.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Jim or Rosanna Ages did.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Jimmy was not shy about spending money. The children swing
at the hospital, a new playground, the football stadium for
the high school. The Glantes paid for it.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
All. Jimmy's money came from trash. He ran a waste.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Management business, or more accurately, he ran a multi multi
million dollar statewide trash Empire Automatic waste disposal or aw
Jimmy had built it from the ground up and in
Danbury He's consumed or driven out much of the competition.
(11:09):
And trash was more than a job. It was a dynasty.
Jimmy's own father had run a small garbage business, and
aj was expected to be the next in line. Trash
was his destiny from birth.
Speaker 6 (11:24):
It kind of was, hey, a j O get involved
with the trash company. I didn't really have how do
I explain this. I just knew I was going to
go into the business. You know.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
This all meant that when he wasn't at ribbon cutting
events held in honor of his family, Ajay was down
at the garbage yard with his dad, school holidays, most weekends.
Speaker 6 (11:46):
From five years old, I was just sitting in a
chair watching him. So you're absorbing like a sponge all
this stuff, you know, not doing anything. I just sit
there and watch him and watch how he conducted business as.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
A were Jimmy the boss at work in his lavish
office lined with signed photos of movie and sports stars.
He'd notice when Jimmy wasn't at home with the family,
he would change.
Speaker 6 (12:13):
At home, he was dad, like you know, a normal dad.
I guess I only have one dad. And then outside
of the home, he was still dad, but it was different,
like you know, at home I could joke with him
funny ha ha, he you know, all that stuff but
I knew, you know, outside of that, it was just
a little different.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Even at this young age, AJ started to realize that
to some people, his dad could be kind of scary.
Speaker 6 (12:42):
Yeah, I mean intimidating and very respected, you know. He
he powerful.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Age told me how one day when he was with
his dad at the yard, Jimmy turned to him and
pointed to a driving one of the forklifts.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
He'd be like, listen, I'm gonna bring this guy in.
You fire him.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Little AJ immediately bursts into tears.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
I thought he meant to light someone on fire, and
I remember crying because I was like, I don't want
to light somebody on fire. You know, I'm only five.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Jimmy tried to reassure him. I wanted to sack him,
tell him he's lost his job.
Speaker 6 (13:21):
And I'm like, I'm I going to tell a grown man.
And he was joking, obviously, but I didn't even like
playing around like that, you know, because this was wrong.
I guess I get the sensitivity from my mother.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Jimmy never actually did get Aj to sack an employee,
but these kind of jokes.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Made it clear that his dad knew how to intimidate people.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
A useful trait when running a multi multi million dollar
statewide trash empire. I guess, and in time AJ started
to appreciate his dad's bad boy attitude.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Soon when he wasn't eating pizza or hanging out at
the garbage yard, he was watching ww wrestling and always
rooting for the villain.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
I always knew when the bad guy was coming out,
like he had a presence. He or she, and everyone
wanted to see him lose, but at the same time
they liked them in a weird way. It was strange.
It was a strange psychology.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
One childhood birthday, Jimmy arranged for two of AJ's wrestling heroes,
The Rock and Triple H to come to his party.
Two of the world's biggest wrestling stars showing up to
some backyard in Danbury. That was the power of Jimmy Galante.
But for AJ, that flashy show.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Of influence was a double edged sword, because as much
as he loved wrestling.
Speaker 6 (14:42):
You know, you start to wonder, you know, are people
going to look at me different.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
I'd never wanted that AJ would worry about how other
people would judge him. Because of his parents' public displays
of wealth and influence.
Speaker 6 (14:54):
Kids don't respect that. You look out and you see
all your buddies out there, and you know, you start
to get paranoid, like are they jealous? Oh, you're spoiled.
You know, we're on the stage and they're in the stand.
You know. I used to be very embarrassed of what
I had ashamed in a weird way, and I think
that would bother my dad because he's like, you should
(15:14):
be proud, but he doesn't understand. I didn't come from
his environment, so I was always an underdog with that.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Like all kids, AJ was striving for independence, for a
path of his own. One day in October of ninety two,
when AJ was six, he was sure he'd found it.
Speaker 6 (15:40):
I remember it was a rainy weekend and my mom
was just like bored in the house. He's like, let's
go to a movie or something.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Jimmy's at work and for once he hasn't bought AJ
with him.
Speaker 6 (15:50):
She took us in a movie theater and I remember
the only thing playing for kids at the time was
The Mighty Ducks.
Speaker 8 (15:56):
From what Disney Pictures, he's a hotshot attorney who's never lost,
forced to coach a hockey team that's never want.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Keep swinging and maybe I'll give him a cold.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
The Mighty Ducks is a story about children's hockey team,
a bunch of dorky misfits.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
At first, they suck.
Speaker 6 (16:12):
I'll try to teach them how to win. You think
losing is funny?
Speaker 5 (16:15):
Well then at first, but.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Spoiler alert, they end up being coached to glory that winning.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
When I watched this movie, I don't know what it
was about the movie that I just I was like,
oh wow, this looks awesome. Mighty Ducks.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
When I watched The Mighty Ducks, I loved it too.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
It's a classic nineties underdog tail about finding purpose in
friendship and teamwork, and it's surprisingly sweet. But that's not
what drew a Jay. And he loved the hockey.
Speaker 6 (16:50):
The aggressiveness, lots of hitting, the fighting, the craziness.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
AJ left the cinema that rainy October day, buzzing and
desperate to life more. And as he did, he realized,
holy shit, hockey is wrestling on ice.
Speaker 6 (17:07):
You couldn't see that anywhere else in any other sport,
you know, I mean football, you have hitting and stuff,
but hockey was such a fast paced game that was it.
I was just like, oh, man, I want to do this.
This is my calling.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Right here, I think for Aja, hockey had one other
crucial ingredient.
Speaker 6 (17:25):
No one else around here was doing it. My classmates,
everyone was playing football, baseball, basketball. No one else really
seemed to like hockey at the time. So I was like,
you know what, I could stand out doing something different.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Hockey could be AJ's way to step out of his
dad's shadow, to do his own thing, to shine triple
age on skates, the rock of the rink.
Speaker 6 (17:48):
It just clicked, you know. It's like everyone kind of
has their thing as a kid where something just clicks.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
But little did he know even without hockey, his dad's
shadow wouldn't be around for much longer because Jimmy Galante
was having trouble with the law. That's coming up after
the break. It's the summer of ninety nine. Aj Galante
(18:22):
is thirteen years old. His buddies are spending long, lazy
days cutting loose. But Aj he's at the garbage yard
with his dad, Jimmy.
Speaker 6 (18:31):
The summer going into my eighth grade. I was there
every day. Basically, we were at his office and he
just called me in and we're eating pizza or something.
I think I think he was trying to soften me
up with pizza.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Jimmy looks directly at AJ and tells.
Speaker 6 (18:46):
Him straight, hey, listen, that he made a mistake with
some tax stuff and I should have paid a little
more than I did. Unfortunately, we can't resolve it, so
I may have to go to prison for a year,
but I'll be back.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Jimmy had just been convicted of tax fraud and was
about to start a year long prison sentence. This news
would have broken most kids, but AJ says to him,
it didn't seem like a big deal.
Speaker 6 (19:13):
You know, even a day without your father, you know
who's been in your life, your whole life. You know,
it's tough. But even at young ages, even younger than
eighth grade, my father would always tell me how it
was and prepare me, like, hey, listen, you know I
screwed up. This is what I did, and I'm gonna
probably pay for it. And I was at least prepped.
You know, it was never a surprise with my father.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Jimmy had talked with AJ about how one day the
cops might come knocking.
Speaker 6 (19:39):
You say, listen, you know if this happens, this may happen.
You know what I mean, he always prepared me, and
sometimes things he told me happened, sometimes it didn't. You know,
some people may think that that's a little much for
a young kid, but honestly, looking back, I'm glad.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Of course AJ did miss his dad, but at least
he still had this sport that had become his passion.
By this point, he was a regular at the nearest
rink to Danbury, just over the state line, and he
was getting a reputation. When AJ put on his pads,
his helmet, laced up his skates and glided out onto
the ice. He was not afraid to put his body
(20:16):
on the line, and that's how he met a kindred spirit.
Speaker 8 (20:20):
My name is Thomas James Pompaslo Junior, otherwise known as
T Bone in the hockey world and also you know
in the streets. I am fifty three years old, six '
two two forty and I'm a scorpio. I'm single, I'm
ready to go.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
T Bone is an absolute giant, rarely seen without a
fat cigar hanging on his lower lip.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
He has his own nickname tattooed across his body.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
It's about five six inches. Letter ring goes across the back.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
When he first met AJ. Tommy t Bone.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Pompouseello was known for being a tough, no nonsense coach,
part because he'd trained the American Armyes hockey team. In
the mid nineties, he was running training clinics for promising
young players.
Speaker 8 (21:08):
Those kind of clinics you usually find out who's got
it and who doesn't, and who wants to learn, who
doesn't want to learn. And I just, you know, I
remember seeing this kid on the ice.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
AJ was smashing into players on the ice, picking himself
up with a shake of the head and doing it
all over again, his laugh echoing across the ice.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
T Bone skated up. He wanted to see what this
kid's deal was.
Speaker 8 (21:34):
He wanted to be a goaltender. And I convinced them
to get out of there, you know, And he started
skating up front, and you know, we hit it off.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Even back then, AJ liked to hit here, as in
smashing opponents against the forwards so down onto the ice,
perfectly legal in hockey. It sounds perfectly painful to me.
Speaker 6 (21:53):
But AJ tough as fucking nailsheir kid.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Over the next few years would help AJ hone this
style of play.
Speaker 6 (22:03):
I realized when I got into high school, I wasn't
going to be a big goal scorer, so I decided
I was going to dedicate my time to really just
keeping the other team from scoring, and athletically, I was
playing more and more, and I had a growth spurt,
and I was dominating the league at that one point,
and it was just everything, everything I wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
By the September of two thousand, Jimmy was released from prison,
back running his trash empire. Life was getting back to normal,
except now AJ was living his Mighty Ducks hockey fantasy.
And when I look at the photos of AJ as
a teenager, he certainly looks happy, confident, at least like
(22:48):
most teams in the early noughties, he also looks quite ridiculous.
I'm not trying to be mean here, like I'm also
a child of that era, and like so many of
my school photos, the kindest thing you can say is
they're off their time.
Speaker 6 (23:02):
We wore everything so big. I mean, my shirt would
probably be down to below my knee, big jeans, big pants, shorts,
I'd be wearing a hat that was too big. I
feel like I screwed up my body temperature because I
was always so hot. I had so many layers of
clothes on me.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
The Backstreet boys have a lot dance for if you
ask me. In some of these photos, he's giving the
camera some attitudes, a bit of a trout p out.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Both his ears are pierced.
Speaker 6 (23:29):
From the outside. Looking in. Without talking to me, you'd
probably think I was a punk or a bad kid
the way I dress. You know, I think people you
know you judge a book by its cover.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I think I recognized the kind of kid AJ was
from my own school days. A bit of a class clown,
but popular, loved by those that knew him, and I
rolled by some that didn't.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
He didn't care about the haters.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Though he was a bad boys star of the high
school hockey team.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Life was pretty good.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
But A J had no sense of what was waiting
for him out on the ice. That's coming up after
the break?
Speaker 6 (24:21):
What a to go in.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
The final stop on my tour of Danbury with AJ
is the Ice Arena. It opened here at the turn
of the millennium, although it was much smaller bout then.
We head inside and brought to the edge of the
brilliant white ice. We're greeted by a very welcome, cool
blast of air. There's a junior league practice on that day,
(24:56):
kids of a similar age to a J when he
was playing for his high school.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
They're soaring across the surface.
Speaker 6 (25:03):
You know what I love about hockey. It's got the
best sounds, you know, the skates grinding the ice, the
pucks on the sticks, the pucks hitting the boards. You
could close your eyes and kind of have an idea
of where things are going.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
I've got to tell you, the first time you see
hockey in person, it really is something. The skill and
the speed of the players. A J always talked about
the aggressiveness, but all.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I can see is the grace.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Players tilt as they weave across the eyes like figure skaters.
They move at speed and then stop suddenly and change direction.
Sometimes in Unison, Starling's putting on a show.
Speaker 6 (25:54):
It doesn't translate on TV. You have to really watch
in person to really understand just how hard of a
game it truly is. These guys are on not even
a quarter inch blade on ice. You know, you're wearing
ten to fifteen pounds of equipment, and just the skill
level is just incredible.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
It's really impressive watching the kids whiz past us. But
it must be starring. Bittersweet feelings for Aja given the
story of asked him to tell me. It's two thousand
and four, AJ senior year. His team have a game tonight.
Speaker 6 (26:36):
You go to school during the day and you just
know you're playing at night. That day of school is
always weird because you're not really concentrating on school. You're
thinking about, you know, the game.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
AJ and his teammates are height when they finally arrive
at the rink.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
They kit up white jerseys.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Black hockey pants, shin pads, mask guards, helmets, pregame pep
talk from the coach, fist pumps.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
The team glides out onto the ice. Their opponents are waiting.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Players line up primed, The puck drops from the referee's fingers.
The game is on, the swish and scrape of blades
in the eyes, the cheers of the crowd rising from
the stands. At first, things are going well for AJ's team.
(27:29):
They're dominating.
Speaker 6 (27:31):
My mom used to say she always knew when our
team was on when she heard the passes hit the
sticks and it has a distinct sound, and that's when
she knew, oh, this is gonna be a good game.
They're on today.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Pup to stick stick to puck, but then things start
to slip.
Speaker 6 (27:49):
No one had possession of the puck, and I was
after it, and then one of their guys was after it.
I just end up launching into them, another clean, beautiful
head actually knocked his helmet off.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
The two teenagers lie motionless on the ground a hush
fools over the arena.
Speaker 6 (28:11):
I didn't feel any pain or anything, and I just
remember getting up and my right skate blade at the
bottom of my skate he got stuck into like a
little groove in the ice, and I want to turn,
and my right leg didn't really turn with me.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
And that's when the adrenaline starts to wear off, or.
Speaker 6 (28:30):
The pain just started rushing to my knee, and I knew.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Something was wrong, seriously wrong. AJ Fools. Medics rush onto
the scene.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
AJ's loaded onto a stretcher out into an ambulance.
Speaker 6 (28:44):
An hour drive to the hospital. You know, you're trying
to like keep your leg up.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
It was painful, not just painful, devastating. At the hospital,
the doctors tell him his season's over, he'd never play
hockey again, and in that moment, he understands there's something
much more serious happening.
Speaker 6 (29:10):
What hurt me the most was I knew that once
I stopped playing hockey, my youth was over. Once hockey ends,
you're working, You're at the yard. You're not going to
be playing sports again. You're going to work, and that's it.
Things will never be the same again. That was it
(29:32):
for me.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
All that independence he'd fought for, built up since he'd
sat in that cinema at age six, watching The Mighty
Ducks over in a flash. After surgery, in a couple
of weeks bed rest, AJ returns to school on strong painkillers.
The prankster has lost his swagger and gained a couple
(29:58):
of crutches. He hobbles in to the building had bowed.
He shuffles down the hallway and stops.
Speaker 6 (30:06):
Everyone's looking at me. And you know when you walk
into a room and you feel people like looking at you,
you know, you could feel it. And I'm like, was
there something on my face? Why is everyone looking at me? Like?
This is weird?
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Hej shrugs and then stops again.
Speaker 6 (30:20):
My science teacher at the time came up to me
and he said, AJ, congratulations, this is amazing, This is unbelievable.
And I'm like, what are you talking about? He goes
to team, you and your dad are starting this hockey team.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
AJ skips class to find a copy of the day's paper,
and on.
Speaker 6 (30:41):
The front page is a picture of my dad saying
that he's bringing professional hockey to dan Berry. He's gonna
put his son in charge of the team. And I'm
like dumbfounded. I'm in total shock. I'm numb. I'm like,
this is the craziest thing I ever heard in my life.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
His dad has told the whole city he's making AJ
the president of a pro hockey team.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
A quiet panic descents I'm seventeen.
Speaker 6 (31:12):
I know how to manage teams on video games, but
I don't know how to do it in real life.
I'm a kid.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
When the school day is finally over, AJ heads home fast,
well as fast as he can.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
In his current condition. Anyway he needs answers.
Speaker 6 (31:36):
I go home and my dad would come home every
single night seven point thirty on the die.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
The door opens, Jimmy comes in, but he says nothing,
just sits down to eat, same time they do every night.
Speaker 6 (31:49):
We just sat there, quiet, awkward and just ate dinner.
Nobody said anything about the newspaper article. I didn't say
anything to him, he didn't say anything to me.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
The rest of the evening plays out in the same
awkward silence. Eventually AJ goes to Bird, but that might
he can't sleep.
Speaker 6 (32:06):
I was just staring at the ceiling, and you know
when you're just restless, you can't sleep. All these thoughts
are going in my head, like I can't do it.
It's too much pressure. I don't know what I'm.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Doing that He did know one thing.
Speaker 6 (32:21):
My dad, when he wants to do something, he doesn't care.
He's like, you know what, I want to do this?
He had a vision and he was hell bent down it.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Hell bent.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Once Jimmy Galante has decided he's going to do something,
the adventure is in motion and Jimmy is driving.
Speaker 6 (32:43):
It's like a rocket ship going off. From there, it's nuts.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
AJ better buck up.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Jimmy's going to make him the most famous teenager in hockey.
Aja might not be steering the rocket ship, but he
was going to be at the center of it all,
spearheading a new identity for the Hat City. It's time
for AJ to tap into his on ice aggression to
live up to his punk reputation to make the most
(33:12):
badass hockey team on the planet that's coming up next
time on the Fighty Pucks. The Fighting Pucks is produced
(33:35):
by Novel for iHeartRadio. For more from Novel, visit novel
dot Audio. The series is hosted by me Claire Crofton
and produced by me Joe Wheeler and Amalia Sortland. The
executive producer is David Waters. Story editing from Max O'Brien,
Mitherly Raw and Austin Mitchell. Our field producer is Bebett.
(34:00):
Our fat checker is Darnia Suleiman. Our hockey sensitivity reader
is Nikil Desai. Production management from Scharie Houston and Charlotte Wolfe.
Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander, Additional engineering
by Daniel Kempson. Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters.
(34:23):
Original music composed by Eric Phillips. Willard Foxton is creative
director of Development. Special thanks to Sean Glynn Katrina Novelle,
David Vassman, Sean ty Tone and beth Anne Macaluso
Speaker 3 (34:50):
Novel
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