The Mighty Ducks

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**The Mighty Ducks**, also known as ***D1: The Mighty Ducks***, is a family-drama, sports-comedy film starring Emilio Estevez as Gordon Bombay, a attorney who must coach a local rag tag team of hockey players in order to complete his community service hours after a DUI.

It was produced by The Kerner Entertainment Company and Avnet–Kerner Productions and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the first film in *The Mighty Ducks* film series. In some countries, the home release copies were printed with the title as *The Mighty Ducks Are the Champions* to avoid confusion with the title of the sequel. The year after the film's release, Disney founded an NHL hockey team, named the "Mighty Ducks of Anaheim" (now the Anaheim Ducks).

## Plot

Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez) is a successful Minneapolis defense attorney, whose truculent courtroom antics have earned him no respect among his peers. After being arrested for drunken driving, Bombay is sentenced to community service by coaching the local "District 5" Pee-wee hockey team. Bombay has a history with the sport, although his memories are far from pleasant: he blew a penalty shot, costing his team the title and disappointing his hyper-competitive coach, Jack Reilly (Lane Smith). In fact, the movie later shows Reilly with Bombay looking at his string of championship banners and disgustingly saying that the runner-up banner should be taken down.

When Bombay meets the team, he realizes the kids have no practice facility, equipment or ability to go with it. The team's first game with Bombay at the helm is against Bombay's old team: the Hawks, the team from the snooty suburb of Edina. Reilly is still head coach and remains bitter about Gordon's shortcoming in that fateful game. District 5 gets pummeled and after Bombay berates the team for not listening to him the players challenge his authority. Meanwhile, Bombay discovers his old mentor and family friend Hans (Joss Ackland) who owns a nearby sporting goods store was in attendance. While visiting him, Bombay recalls that he quit playing hockey after losing his father four months before the championship game. Hans encourages him to rekindle his childhood passion.

Bombay approaches his boss, Gerald Ducksworth (Josef Sommer) to sponsor the team, which Ducksworth reluctantly agrees. The result is a complete makeover for the team, both in look (as they can now buy professional equipment) and in skill (as Bombay has more time to teach the kids hockey fundamentals). Now playing as the "Ducks", they fight to a tie in the next game and recruit three new players: figure-skating siblings Tommy (Danny Tamberelli) and Tammy Duncan (Jane Plank) and slap shot specialist and enforcer Fulton Reed (Elden Henson). The potential of Ducks player Charlie Conway (Joshua Jackson) catches Bombay's eye and he takes him under his wing.

Bombay learns that star player for the Hawks, Adam Banks (Vincent Larusso), actually resides in the Ducks' district boundaries and threatens Reilly into transferring Banks to the Ducks. After hearing an out of context quote about them, the Ducks players lose faith in Bombay and revert to their old habits.

Ducksworth makes a deal with Reilly about the Hawks keeping Banks, however, Bombay refuses since it would be against fair-play, which Ducksworth berated him about when he started his community service. Left with either the choice of letting his team down or get fired from his job, Bombay takes the latter.

Bombay manages to win back the Ducks' trust and Adam Banks proves to be a valuable asset. The Ducks manage to make it to the championship against the Hawks. Despite the Hawks' heavy attacks taking Banks out of the game, the Ducks manage to score a tie and earn a penalty shot in the final seconds of the game. Bombay encourages Charlie to take the shot, reassuring him that even if he fails it will be alright. Charlie manages to score a goal using a technique Gordon taught him.

The movie ends with Bombay boarding a bus headed to a minor-league tryout. Although he seems daunted at the prospect of going up against younger players, he receives the same words of encouragement and advice from the Ducks he had given them, promising he will return next season to defend their title.

## Cast

* Emilio Estevez as Gordon Bombay
* Joss Ackland as Hans
* Heidi Kling as Casey Conway
* Joshua Jackson as Charlie Conway
* Elden Henson as Fulton Reed
* Shaun Weiss as Greg Goldberg
* Matt Doherty as Les Averman
* Garette Ratliff Henson as Guy Germaine
* Marguerite Moreau as Connie Moreau
* Vincent LaRusso as Adam Banks
* Brandon Adams as Jesse Hall
* Lane Smith as Jack Reilly
* Josef Sommer as Gerald Ducksworth
* J.D. Daniels as Peter Mark
* Aaron Schwartz as Dave Karp
* Danny Tamberelli as Tommy Duncan
* Jane Plank as Tammy Duncan
* Jussie Smollett as Terry Hall
* Hal Fort Atkinson III as Philip Banks
* Jacqueline Kim as Jane

## Production

The film was written by Steven Brill, who later sued for royalties for the film. Jake Gyllenhaal turned down the role of Charlie Conway. Emilio Estevez was cast in 1991, after Herek was impressed by his performances in Brat Pack films, *The Outsiders* (1983), *The Breakfast Club* and *St. Elmo's Fire* (both 1985).

It was filmed in several locations in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Principal photography took place between January and April 1992, during the end of the 1991-92 NHL season.

## Reception

### Box office

The film grossed $50,752,337 in the United States and Canada, becoming a surprising success with audiences. *The Mighty Ducks* made $54 million in home video rentals according to Video Week magazine in 1992.

### Critical reception

*The Mighty Ducks* received generally lukewarm reviews from critics. It holds a 23% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 30 reviews, with an average rating of 4/10. The site's consensus reads, "*The Mighty Ducks* has feel-good goals, but only scores a penalty shot for predictability". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert said the film was "sweet and innocent, and that at a certain level it might appeal to younger kids. I doubt if its ambitions reach much beyond that", and gave it a 2-star rating. Rita Kempley of *The Washington Post* described the film as 'Steven Brill, who has a small role in the film, constructed the screenplay much as one would put together some of those particleboard bookcases from Ikea.'

Emilio Estevez was surprised at the popularity of the movie series.

## Accolades

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

* 2006: AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers – Nominated
* 2008: AFI's 10 Top 10:
	+ Nominated Sports Film

## Home media

The film was released on VHS on April 14, 1993, DVD on April 11, 2000, and on Blu-ray on May 23, 2017.

## Sequels

The unexpected box-office success of the film inspired two sequels, *D2: The Mighty Ducks* (1994) and *D3: The Mighty Ducks* (1996), and an animated TV series (the latter taking on a science fiction angle with actual anthropomorphic ducks). While both sequels failed to match the original film's gross, they were still financially successful.

1. ↑ The 'Mighty Ducks' Trilogy: An Oral History (2014-06-09).
2. ↑ Peters, Chris (2015-07-27). Jake Gyllenhaal recalls how his parents cost him 'Mighty Ducks' role.
3. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `AFI`
4. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `mojo`
5. ↑ Malinowski, Erik (November 25, 2015). How Mighty Ducks the Movie Became Mighty Ducks the NHL Team. Hearst Communications.
6. ↑ The Mighty Ducks. *Rotten Tomatoes*. Fandango Media.
7. ↑ Home - Cinemascore.
8. ↑ Ebert, Roger (October 2, 1992). The Mighty Ducks. *RogerEbert.com*. Ebert Digital LLC.
9. ↑ Template:Cite news
10. ↑ Emilio Estevez on the Success of Mighty Ducks Video. *NHL VideoCenter*. National Hockey League (October 18, 2016).
11. ↑ AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers Nominees.
12. ↑ AFI's 10 Top 10 Nominees (PDF).
13. ↑ Template:Cite news