Champions (1992)
"The Mighty Ducks" (original title)

A self-centered lawyer is sentenced to community service coaching a rag tag youth hockey team.

Director:

Stephen Herek

Writer:

Steven Brill

Stars:

Emilio Estevez, Joss Ackland, Lane Smith

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Emilio Estevez	...	Gordon Bombay
Joss Ackland	...	Hans
Lane Smith	...	Coach Jack Reilly
Heidi Kling	...	Casey Conway
Josef Sommer	...	Mr. Gerald Ducksworth
Joshua Jackson	...	Charlie Conway
Elden Henson	...	Fulton Reed (as Elden Ratliff)
Shaun Weiss	...	Greg Goldberg
M.C. Gainey	...	Lewis
Matt Doherty	...	Lester Averman
Brandon Quintin Adams	...	Jesse Hall (as Brandon Adams)
J.D. Daniels	...	Peter Mark
Aaron Schwartz	...	Dave Karp
Garette Ratliff Henson	...	Guy Germaine
Marguerite Moreau	...	Connie Moreau

Storyline

Gordon Bombay, a hotshot lawyer, is haunted by memories of his childhood, when, as the star player in his champion hockey team, he lost the winning goal in a shootout, thereby losing the game, and the approval of his coach. After being charged for drunk driving, the court orders him to coach a peewee hockey team, the worst in the league, Gordon is at first very reluctant. However, he eventually gains the respect of the kids and teaches them how to win, gaining a sponsor on the way and giving the team the name of The Ducks. In the finals, they face Gordon's old team, coached by Gordon's old coach, giving Gordon a chance to face old ghosts.

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Plot Keywords:

team | hockey team | hockey | coach | lawyer | 

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Taglines:

He's never coached. They've never won. Together they'll learn everything about winning!

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Genres:

Action | Comedy | Drama | Family | Sport

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for mild language

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

2 October 1992 (USA)

Also Known As:

Champions

Filming Locations:

Cook Memorial Arena - 11091 Mississippi Boulevard, Coon Rapids, Minnesota, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$10,000,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$50,752,337 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Avnet/Kerner Productions, Touchwood Pacific Partners 1, Walt Disney Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

100 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Adam Banks is often referred to as a "Cake Eater" this term is actually well known throughout Minnesota and refers to people who live in the city of Edina, a suburb of Minneapolis. It's in reference to Marie Antoinette's infamous, "Let them eat cake".

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Goofs

During the scene with the ladder, despite the Cardinals draw with the Ducks, the Cardinals got 0 ties. It should have been at least one.

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Quotes

Gordon Bombay: A team isn't a bunch of kids out to win. A team is something you belong to, something you feel, something you have to earn.

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Crazy Credits

In the closing Credits, Joshua Jackson's character 'Charlie Conway' is misspelled and listed as "Charlie Conroy"

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Connections

Featured in The Rotten Tomatoes Show: The Best of Music in the Movies (2010)

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Soundtracks

"AC-CENT-TCHU-ATE THE POSITIVE"
Written by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer
Performed by Dr. John
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Records Inc.
By Arrangement with Warner Special Products

User Reviews

He has never coached, they have never won. Together they'll learn everything about winning

The Mighty Ducks (aka as the Champions), is one of the great Disney movies I have seen. Not your typical fairytale, but a rugged kids adventure, which also goes into that winning is not everything, but that being in a team and playing as a team is the most important part of any sport and is good measure for a person's life.

Aggressive trial lawyer Gordon Bombay has never lost a case. But when he's sentenced to a community service assignment, he must coach a ragtag team of peewee hockey players who can't skate, can't score and can't win. First he teaches the hapless team everything about winning and they teach him that winning is not everything. Watch the pucks fly as they battle their way to the most important game of their lives!

This film is a great story for young up and coming sports ‘people' to watch and learn that winning is not the be all and end all of sport. Sure there are some people such as Coach Reilly, because they are not true sports lovers. Instead they treat sport as a serious event, not something that as Gordon Bombay says should be ‘fun'. In Australia, and my part of this country, we have Aussie Rules football, which again is a very team orientated sport. Although it can have some extraordinary individuals that play, the theme is still the same, that a team has to stick together and try as hard as it can.

This movie has a very young and funny cast, with some old heads thrown in for good team balance. The obvious star is Emilio Estevez, who stars as Gordon Bombay. While he is a very aggressive character in the beginning, Gordon brings his knowledge and experience to a group of young kids that would make any sports coach proud. Estevez has had a good movie career, with some of his more well known movies being The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo's Fire, and an unaccredited role in Mission Impossible . The other main star is a very young Joshua Jackson who portrayed Charlie Conway, a good ice-hockey player, who reminds his coach a lot of himself as a young peewee hockey player. Jackson has made a name for himself in Hollywood starring in films such as Cruel Intentions, the disappointing Skulls and the popular TV drama, `Dawson's Creek'.

Other cast members also include the rival coach of the Hawks Ice-Hockey team, Coach Reilly played by veteran actor Lane Smith. He also starred in another great film I saw recently, which happened to be on another popular sport, that of golf, the film being `The Legend of Bagger Vance'. All the characters that are on the Mighty ducks team are likeable people. The team consists of a fat kid, a silent kid, a nice kid, a wiseacre kid, a figure-skating princess, and a tough kid. The whole formula works for me anyway.

I thought that this film had some impressive Ice-Hockey scenes that looked real, though I will never know if they are real or not. Ice-Hockey is a demanding sport and this movie shows that this is the case, with heavy bumps and unrelenting pressure on players. It was good to see that this sport has both males and females playing together, again the movie shows how well the two can gel.

So, if you think that sport is not your thing, but want to give it a go, perhaps this film is what you need to watch. Although this isn't the most talented group of athletes to take the ice, and in the beginning the Ducks do really ‘suck', they prove that with some good coaching guidance and team camaraderie, anything is possible if you put your mind to it.

QUACK QUACK QUACK – Go the Ducks!

Rating: 8/10 or 4 Stars