NHL Lockout Movie Night: D3: The Mighty Ducks

Sad news, everyone: The NHL has locked out its players. Good news, everyone: We’re here to help.

Each week (or so) until the lockout ends (or we run out of movies), Sarah Baicker and Dan McQuade will watch a hockey movie you probably didn’t know existed. Chances are, there’s a reason you didn’t know most of these films were ever made.

This week: D3: The Mighty Ducks

Sarah: The original Mighty Ducks was my first-ever favorite hockey movie. As a kid who never understood why my friends liked football or baseball better than hockey, when The Mighty Ducks came out, it was awesome to see everyone appreciate a movie about my sport. On top of that, amazing catch-phrases like "triple deke" and "Flying V," plus, a cameo from Mike Modano -- my favorite player! There was nothing not to love about the first Ducks flick.

Dan: I remember seeing D2 in theaters. We liked it, I guess, but we also thought it was pretty stupid and realized how much of a re-tread it was. At 11! I can’t imagine what D3 is going to be like as an adult. Fortunately, the film opens with a montage of scenes from the first two films, in case you hadn't seen the first two.

Sarah: I am immediately nostalgic for how awesome the original Mighty Ducks movie was! So, clearly, this montage is very effective.




Sarah: The conflict’s quickly established. Even though the Mighty Ducks were world champions in the second movie, they’ve been brought into Eden Hall to play ... JV. And the Varsity team -- or “the ONLY hockey team” according to one of the members -- is not happy about it. After some give and take, though, Russ (Keenan Thompson of SNL fame!) puts the chancellor’s son in his place: “That’s your dad? Nice outfit. Did it come with a yacht?”

Dan: Let’s be clear: This is insane. How do the Ducks go from world champs to JV? I guess the producers rejected “the Ducks play an invading alien hockey team” and went with their second thought. That’s a shame, because if the Ducks played aliens in hockey I would definitely have owned this movie before now.



Sarah: Hey, remember how much you liked the last movie? Here are all the same gags!

Dan: Comedy sequels pretty much re-use all the same gags, which is fine: That’s why they’re sequels. The trick is to put them in fresh situations so they’re funny again instead of just repetition. D3 just repeats the gags: Fulton Reed shoots toward a suitcase and misses, Luis Mendoza can’t stop and for some reason Goldberg can’t skate all of a sudden. Aren’t these people the world champions? Where’d all their hockey skill go?

Sarah: At least we learned that Goldberg’s dream school is Drexel. He sure set his collegiate hockey ambitions high!



Dan: I’ve written some bad jokes, but at least I’ve never written a stinker like this “the headmaster knows Wayne Newton” gag in D3. I like that this photo of Newt Gingrich dates the movie perfectly to the mid-90s. Or early 2012.




Dan: Explaining the plot in four screenshots, above: The new school has hard classes, bullies from the varsity and cute girls for Charlie Conway to flirt with.

Sarah: In the scene with the The Old Man You Loved in D1 and D2, Charlie is still wearing his Ducks hockey jersey that he went to class in and played hockey in. I don’t want to think about how bad that jersey smells at this point.

Dan: Charlie spends a lot of time bragging to this girl that he’s the star captain of the Mighty Ducks. We learn from Charlie hitting on his classmate that her favorite bands are Pantera and R.E.M., which is one of the more realistic parts of the film.

Sarah: Wait. Charlie Conway was bad in the original Mighty Ducks. Since when did he become a “scorer”? Also, I’m pretty sure they don’t encourage any player -- whether he scores 50 goals a season or two goals a season -- to clear the puck in front of the net.

Dan: He was so bad in the last one he gave up his spot.



Dan: The current varsity team has won many, many state championships, per the banners. Those players say that it was just a publicity stunt to sign the Mighty Ducks as the new JV team. Other, more established players were kicked off the JV team to make way for the Mighty Ducks. Who exactly are the villains in this film?



Dan: And Luis Mendoza is looking up cheerleaders’ skirts. This movie should have been called The Adventure of the Eden Hall Heroes.



Dan: Hey look, the new coach is wearing an NHLPA fleece.

Sarah: I guess we know which side of the NHL’s current labor debate he’s on!

Dan: D3, predicting two NHL lockouts almost a decade in advance of the first one.

Sarah: Hey, so just a note here. The Ducks all change in the same room, despite being a co-ed team. USA Hockey rules state that boys and girls under age 18 aren’t allowed to get changed in the same locker room together. Their very serious coach probably should have known that.

Dan: Another place that has a rule boys and girls must change in separate rooms? High school.


Dan: The Ducks’ first game, against a rival school’s freshman team, features the Ducks taking a 9-0 lead after two periods only to give up nine goals in the third period and tie. “The script delivers with a bludgeon rather than a scalpel,” Roger Ebert wrote.

Sarah: Nine goals in a hockey game? What is this, a kids version of the Flyers-Pens playoff series from last season?

Dan: What I really enjoyed: The Ducks’ coach didn’t pull Julie “The Cat” until she had given up seven goals in the final period.

Sarah: It doesn’t even take Peter Laviolette that long to yank a goalie!



Dan: Things progress about how you’d expect: The varsity and JV play lots of pranks on each other, including this one that sticks the JV with the bill at a fancy restaurant.

Sarah: I enjoyed how, by making this cake, the restaurant was in on having the varsity team stiff the JV. The Ducks actually have to wash dishes and scrub toilets to pay their bill.




Sarah: The sides eventually agree to end the prank war and play a game at dawn. Really? What high school kid wants to wake up at dawn?

Dan: I enjoyed how the varsity brought a fog machine to this early morning hockey game.




Dan: After Hans dies, Gordon Bombay -- who left at the start of the film -- shows up in Charlie Conway’s bedroom, creepily. He teaches him that the new coach has a daughter in a wheelchair and that’s why he quit playing hockey when the North Stars moved.

Sarah: He quit because the North Stars moved? There must be no doctors in Dallas.

Dan: Bombay teaches Charlie to work hard (um, again) and also plays deus ex machina when the crusty old dean is about to revoke their scholarships, threatening to sue Eden Hall if the Ducks’ scholarships are revoked. I’m not sure why they’d suddenly kick the kids out of school. Yes, blowing a 9-0 lead in the third period is pretty embarrassing, but even worse is admitting a hockey team as a publicity stunt then kicking them out almost immediately.




Sarah: In the first Might Ducky movie, the learned to pass and stickhandle with raw eggs. In D3, apparently, they practice with trash. Trash?! I don't know about anyone out there reading this, but I've never seen a hockey team practice with anything but pucks.




Dan: Suddenly it’s the big, annual Varsity vs. JV game, which is attended by thousands and treated as the second coming. Spoiler alert: The Mighty Ducks win in the end, but it seems like a hollow victory at best. Look how poorly they played defense! As shown above, the varsity gets several 3-on-0 chances and fails to convert a single one.

Sarah: Or maybe they just used the same footage several times.

Dan: Also possible! Another spoiler: The Ducks cheat, this time by bringing back Fulton Reed’s fellow Bash Brother Dean Portman for the final period of the final game. He hadn’t been enrolled in the school prior to his scene. If MVP: Most Valuable Primate can sufficiently explain why the chimp is allowed to play hockey, high school sports movies need to makes sure its players are eligible.

Oh, and Dean does this:


Dan: Ha ha, it’s funny because this varsity guy now has a serious concussion problem for life!

Sarah: OK, so earlier in the film -- after Julie "The Cat" Gaffney wins the starting goaltender position -- the film very, very briefly mentions that Goldberg has made the switch from goal to defense. That's a huge stretch, since we learned early on in the movie that he can't skate. At all. But now, as if the move to D was shocking enough ... Goldberg scores the winning goal?!

Dan: Every plot dilemma is solved by the game-winning goal. Even Charlie earned the respect (um, again) of his old coach.

Sarah: Gordon Bombay looks on satisfied!

Ratings

Hockey quality


Sarah: As IMDB notes, “There are several infractions/misapplications of the rules of hockey.” But it really wasn’t half-bad. Except the scene where the coach made them play hockey with garbage spread out all over the ice? That was bad.

Sports movie cliches



Dan: OK, a team of losers wins the big game, that’s every sports movie. But did D3 have to re-use all the same exact cliches from the first two films?

Charlie Conway’s hockey transformation


Dan: Conway went from promising young player with the magic triple deke move in D1 to team captain who was so bad he had to give up his roster spot in D2. In D3, he suddenly becomes an arrogant jerk who believes he doesn’t need to practice. No wonder he moved to Capeside, Mass., after this.

Original Mighty Ducks references


Sarah: From the Flying V to those terrible aquamarine jerseys to Mendoza’s inability to do a hockey stop to “quack … quack … quack,” if you’re hoping to feel nostalgic for the original Ducks, you will not be disappointed. This movie is basically a celebration of how the first Ducks movie was so heartwarming.

Paul Kariya acting ability




Dan: Paul Kariya, then of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, makes a cameo at the end. He’s delivers such analysis as, “The Ducks are playing their hearts out, but they’ve got to find a way to score.” What, Teemu Selanne wasn’t available?

Previous reviews
MVP: Most Valuable Primate
National Lampoon's Pucked

Want to suggest a hockey movie for Sarah and Dan to review? Leave your selection in the comments -- or send us an e-mail!

E-mail Sarah Baicker at sbaicker@comcastsportsnet.com or Dan McQuade at mcquade@gmail.com