20 Years of the Mighty Ducks

I have spent the last hour typing, and erasing, and retyping, and desperately trying to arrange my thoughts on fans and the media in today's sports society. It's something that strikes a personal cord with me and I'm finding it exceptionally hard to organize my thoughts the way I would like to, so that post will have to wait until I've had some decent sleep, and let some of my emotion escape. Fighting fire with fire is simply dense, is it not?

Instead, lets throw it back to a movie that introduced most of us southern American kiddos to the beautiful sport that is hockey.

Seriously, who didn't doesnt love the Mighty Ducks movie? (and the sequels!) 

I mean, Disney doesn't really make mistakes when it comes to movie ideas, but still. The Mighty Ducks is one of my favorites.

And I'm confident to say before watching it, I had no idea what the sport of hockey was. I do live in south Texas...

I like to look back on the movie now being a huge hockey fan, and laugh at lines in different ways.

My favorite:
Connie Moreau: [referring to a duck] But they're wimpy!
Guy Germaine: They don't even have teeth!

Gordon Bombay: Neither do hockey players.

This is particularly funny to me because after meeting a friend of a friend who was a hockey player, and discovering we had mutual friends, we took a picture to send to them. It wasn't until I was about to send the picture to one of our friends that I noticed that he had FLIPPED OUT his fake teeth for the picture, and put them right back in by the time I had turned to face him. I assure you that the NHL has among the best dental plans for its players.

So imagine being a huge Mighty Ducks fan and hearing that Disney was going to make the team a reality. 

That's right. The Mighty Ducks were going to be a REAL TEAM in the NHL. Talk about cornering a market. (Disney is downright almost evil genius. "BUT MOMMMMM, I HAVE TO GO SEE THE REAL MIGHTY DUCKS PLAY.")

So in 1993, the Mighty Ducks become a reality. Over the next few years the ducks experience growing pains, (We Texans fans know the pains of growing an expansion team, eh?), but acquire a beauty by the name of Teemu Selanne. (his significance is to come.)

(Side note: Beauty in hockey has a different meaning. Just think of someone who is spectacular. Either as a team mate, as a player, or both. Thanks to hockey, I very rarely use the word beauty out of this particular context. It confuses people.)

Fast forward to a few playoff appearances, a Stanley Cup finals appearance (non-victorious), the exit of Teemu Selanne and a few other key players, and an impending lockout and Disney is ready to sell. A businessman by the name of Henry Samueli and his wife by the team and continue on with their business.  

2005 brings about the return of Selanne, along with the uprising of two rookies by the name of Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry and the Mighty Ducks make an appearance in the Western Conference finals.

At the beginning of the 06-07 season, the ducks drop the "mighty" and just become the Anaheim Ducks, and WIN LORD STANLEY. (I would like to mention that they had to beat 2 of my favorite teams in the process to get there. And that a team created from a Disney movie has more Stanley Cup wins that either of those two teams...although that's not hard when the number to beat is 0.)

So that's a lot of history to get to tonight. (Sorry. Told you I really love hockey.) Tonight, the little kid in me absolutely died and went to heaven. Why you ask?

The Mighty Ducks took the ice on throwback night in Anaheim. 

How sick do those babies look? The Anaheim Ducks are celebrating their 20th season in the NHL and pulled out these retro jerseys for the occasion. They even went as far as having 1993 style graphics on the screen during the game. Had the Red Sox not been trying to give me a heart attack on the other coast, I would've been the happiest little bumblebee in the world.

The goalie, Jonas Hiller, rocked this helmet tonight. 

The other ducks goalie, Viktor Fasth, also has a throwback mask for this season. His was painted by my FAVORITE mask artist, a swede by the name of David Gunnarsson who does amazing work.

In what I refuse to believe was anything other that brilliant planning by the Ducks front office, throwback night happened against the Ottawa Senators, the very team the they beat to claim their only Stanley Cup with goals made by Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, and an assist by Teemu Selanne (Who announced at the beginning of this season, in a hilarious video, that he would be coming back for his final pro season in Anaheim).

After losing their season opener to the Avalanche, the Ducks have won 4 straight and look to be doing something special in what I consider to be a very strong division. I'm hoping for more throwback nights throughout the course of the year, preferably not during playoff baseball. We need to see Fasth's helmet make an appearance with the throwback jersey's for the full effect.

I'll try to make the before-mentioned post sometime this afternoon or later this week if I can't seem to straighten my thoughts out. We'll talk some playoff baseball, college football (Mizzou beating Georgia..what?!), NFL, and maybe take a look at the Rockets trip overseas. 

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving y'all. I will be continuing to celebrate this evening with a hockey game, my family, and Crown Royal. So very much to be thankful for. 

xoxo