Very few sports movies invoke the same sense of nostalgia as The Mighty Ducks franchise, short of The Sandlot and, of course, No Holds Barred, and that’s because people who grew up in the 1990s want nothing more than to go back and live in that era for the rest of eternity. As far as box office success goes, the three Mighty Ducks films only earned about $120 million combined in the U.S., but dollar signs only matter to studio suits, because the rest of us want to shout, “Quack! Quack! Quack!” over and over until our arms are covered in slap bracelets and the people trying to explain that The Mighty Ducks was just The Bad News Bears rewritten for hockey finally give up and walk away.
If anything, though, we love movies like The Mighty Ducks because they create opportunities for the original casts to reunite and reignite our senses of nostalgia as if they’re those birthday candles that you just can’t blow out. Over the weekend, most of the cast of D2: The Mighty Ducks did just that, as everyone from Mike Vitar (AKA Luis Mendoza and Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez) to Scott Whyte (evil Iceland’s captain Gunnar Stahl) got together to celebrate 20 years of the sequel that was only slightly not as good as the original. Fortunately, Marguerite Moreau, who played Connie Moreau in the trilogy and later Katie in Wet Hot American Summer, served as the cast’s historian for this wonderful occasion.
And yes, there was a flying V.
Shaun Weiss, who played the beloved Goldberg, was also there, and I’m assuming that after his last brush with the law, he refrained from urinating on anyone.
(L-R) Mike Vitar (Mendoza), Garette Ratliff Henson (Guy Germaine), Vincent LaRusso (Adam Banks), Aaron Lohr (Dean Portman), and Scott Whyte (Gunnar Stahl). Damn you, Gunnar Stahl, for winning us over in the end.
I’m sure it has been said a million times already, but “I was THIS close” is a line that could be used with this image of Connie and Guy, if one were so inclined to do such a thing.
Unfortunately, Emilio Estevez, Joshua Jackson and Kenan Thompson were too cool to show up and reminisce with their castmates. Whatever, it’s their loss, but it would have been nice to at least see Coach Bombay give a stirring motivational speech. It’s not like Estevez is all that busy these days.