Untold: Crime and Penalties: The Danbury Trashers is a fascinating story about a minor league hockey team created by a man named Jimmy Golante. Jimmy Golante was a crime boss who was the mastermind behind his entire operation, and he used the Trashers as a cover-up to hide behind.

Golante’s first order of business was to make his seventeen-year-old son, AJ Golante, the president and general manager of the team. As expected, a seventeen-year-old kid running a minor league hockey team came with its fair share of question marks. Golante was determined to recruit the most scrappy and aggressive hockey players in the world, and planned to use them to psych out the opponent. 

Oddly enough, AJ’s plan worked to perfection. The Trashers went on to dominate their opponents game after game. They became so dominant that their aggressive playing style and constant victories began to gain a lot of national attention. 

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Golante continued running his crime business. While the national attention was great for the Trashers organization, it was not so great for Golante. The Trashers were brought to the FBI’s attention, which helped them get a jump on Golante’s illegal business. Will Golante and the Trashers escape the FBI, or will they get caught?

One of the main strengths of the documentary is the build-up of suspense. From start to finish, I was completely engaged and wanted to know what was going to happen next. I also enjoyed the back-and-forth perspectives. The documentary often switched from the hockey team to the crime business, which kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. I also loved the sports aspect of the documentary because it was really intriguing how a seventeen year old kid was able to construct such a successful minor league hockey roster.

The only weakness in the documentary is the lack of detail about Jimmy Golante’s crime operation. I wish there was more information regarding his ways of avoiding the FBI, his tactics to get people to trust his operation, etc. The lack of detail on this front resulted in a bit of an open-ended conclusion. The documentary ended without giving any information on how much time Golante spent in prison for his actions and if anyone else went down with him.

I would recommend this episode of Crime & Untold to anyone that enjoys suspenseful crime mysteries above the age of thirteen. Anyone that enjoys crime shows will really enjoy this documentary because it is such a sophisticated plan and a perfectly executed cover by Golante. The reason this documentary should be reserved for people above thirteen years of age is because there is a lot of vulgar language from start to finish. This documentary will also be intriguing to anyone who is interested in sports because the story about the Trashers is just as interesting as the story about Golante’s crime operation. 

8/10