Tuesday, June 13, 2006

How the Mafia Does Hockey


Good to see Stephen representing on the comments. This one's for you.

In a real-life story ripped from The Sopranos, a regional garbage magnate and owner of a minor league hockey team called the Trashers has been arrested on charges of racketeering, extortion, witness tampering and circumventing the league's salary cap. (Is anybody but me curious about the official charge associated with circumventing a minor league's salary cap?)

The league issued a press release saying that they decided not to play next season because their closest rivals won't play next year because of a lease issue. However, the story notes:

The release does not mention that the Trashers are under federal indictment, that [the owner] Galante is in prison awaiting trial, that his family's bank accounts have been frozen or that federal marshals are working out of the building where the Trashers and Galante's garbage companies were based.

It seems that Galante has also been paying "Matty the Horse" 10K per month for mob muscle to keep his garbage companies at the top of the heap, so to speak.


Do you ever get the feeling that reality has become a parody of HBO?


ESPN.com: UHL team cancels season after mob indictment


filed: sports; humor

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it's important to remember that mobsters are people too. I'm not sure why that's important, but hey there it is. I think this is great. I would lay even money that George Steinbrenner(if that's how you spell his name) is friends with this guy. Aren't sports grand?

Anonymous said...

By the way, thank you. I am the Comment King.