Bitter? I have my reasons.

[Hockeywriter]

I had the Trashers beat for the two years of their existence (I will now have a new beat) and I see a much bigger picture than the average hockey fan. I see perhaps as many as 75 to 100 people unemployed or hours drastically reduced because of the death of the Trashers due solely to the disgusting greed of James Galante. Rink personnel will be scaled back, food establishments will layoff, parking garage attendants will be let go, not to mention all the staff at the Trashers like Phil Giubileo who literally gave his heart and soul to this team, Brianne Tompkins who took so much heat with refund and media requests these past three weeks that she deserves a raise, but will soon be unemployed thanks to the greed of Tony and Carmela Galante. Others who made my job so much easier are game night coordinator Tom Butkier and the hottest looking merchandise director in any league Pam Badoud. Good luck to Heather and Bobby as well.

With all the pain and suffering James Galante has caused these good folks as well as the multitude of others not directly affiliated with the Trashers, I hope Galante is convicted and is given at least 20 years to reflect on what he's done. If anyone wants to say that is bitter go right ahead, but when it directly affects your family (and the Trashers were my family in a lot of ways) most people would have the same views I have on this. Nevertheless, if James Galante lives to be 100, I am sure he will still see himself as a hapless victim in all this. That's just how his mind set works. Shame on you James Galante. Despite all the good you did in the community, (I hope they change the name of the hospital wing they named after you) you made up for that and then some with this greedy move. You sir are a bad person. Nothing bad can happen to any of the Galante's that would not make me say "payback is a Bit**".

[killer kaminski]

I lost my team as well, the Missouri River Otters. First off let me say that I've made a ton of friends (some of which I call family) in seven years of River Otters hockey at the Family Arena. I feel for those people and the staff of the Family Arena, but I'm not bitter, we've had a good seven year run , and it's been reported we will have pro hockey returning in 2007-08. The River Otters were owned by a crooked caracter (Kevin Fitzpatrick) before Mike Shanahan took the reigns and we rebouned after we experienced some bad times, as we are going through right now, but I will wait in anticipation of rebirth which I'm told will happen. Hopefully it happens for you too.

[Battra]

I lost my team as well, the Missouri River Otters. First off let me say that I've made a ton of friends (some of which I call family) in seven years of River Otters hockey at the Family Arena. I feel for those people and the staff of the Family Arena, but I'm not bitter, we've had a good seven year run , and it's been reported we will have pro hockey returning in 2007-08. The River Otters were owned by a crooked caracter (Kevin Fitzpatrick) before Mike Shanahan took the reigns and we rebouned after we experienced some bad times, as we are going through right now, but I will wait in anticipation of rebirth which I'm told will happen. Hopefully it happens for you too.

That's about the size of it. From what I understand, the Otters aren't officially folded, just on hiatus...who knows? I'm sure there'll be a team out in the Fam before we know it..

And you're right, we had a good 7 year run. A playoff victory would have been nice, but we didn't get it, but what we did get was a great 7 years of minor league hockey in a traditionally major league market. I met a lot of great people there, and some of those people will be coming to the Bandits games w/me in Chesterfield, but as we're only supposed to have them for one year, that'd be great if we had our new pro team in 07/08.

Anyway..

Here's to Minor League Hockey!

Here's to the Fans who lost their teams!