They Are the Champions

The Mighty Ducks is one of my favorite movie trilogies in the world. I still rewatch D1 through D3 regularly into my older age, especially when it’s late at night and/or I’m drunk at home. (Although all three Ducks movies are unbelievable, it should be noted that D2 is the most superior.) These movies have everything you could want in a ‘90s-era live-action Disney flick—hot skaters, cool chicks, jock jams, racial diversity, hard-hitting social issues like classism, and an intro to the actors who would eventually show up in Heavyweights (another one of the best movies ever). You really can’t deny the magic of The Mighty Ducks—in fact, the first movie had such influence that it even inspired a professional NHL hockey team: the Anaheim Ducks. Very iconic.

 All that said, I will never get over the genius existence of The Quack Attack Podcast (which I found via this article), the only podcast dedicated to all things Mighty Ducks-related. The pod is hosted by Mike, Tommy, and Kevin, three kindred spirits based in Dallas. For almost three years, the trio has questioned and explored everything from the leadership of Coach Gordon Bombay (played by Emilio Estevez) to the Ducks’ sartorial styles (for instance, one player named Guy Germaine wears a keffiyeh).

Read on for an email conversation with Mike from The Quack Attack about the best Mighty Ducks fan theory, the importance of careful movie-watching, and what D4 would look like (if another movie were to happen).

Buena Vista Pictures

Buena Vista Pictures

Who are you guys?
We’re three guys all in our mid-to-late 20s. I’m a journalist, Tommy is an editor, and Kevin is a designer. We all used to work at the same place. Tommy and I had a job where we worked from 5pm to 2am. Basically we were the two people running the sports section of a website at night.

Explain the genesis of the podcast and how it came together.
In college my friends and I would have conversations about The Mighty Ducks similar to the ones we have on the show, and I always figured it could make a good podcast. One night at our old job, Tommy and I got to talking about Gordon Bombay and arguing about whether he actually learned anything from his Mighty Ducks stint. I realized Tommy was the partner I needed on the podcast. I explained the idea to him and he was in. Tommy asked Kevin if he wanted to join and he said yes, no questions asked. From there we just had to figure out how to actually record a podcast and put it on the internet. The argument about Gordon Bombay became our first episode.

You’re two years into the podcast and with over 100 episodes. What do you think makes The Mighty Ducks trilogy a good source for topics and how do they come about?
The fact that there are so many plot loopholes makes things interesting. We sort of refuse to chalk things up to “Well, it’s a movie,” so a lot of our podcasts are spent trying to come with ways to explain oversights from the writers, producers, and directors.

Buena Vista Pictures

Buena Vista Pictures

The episodes are a good mix of real story investigation and absurd fan fiction. So far, what is your favorite theory or debunked mystery that absolutely makes sense now?
Well, our longest-running one is probably Hans actually being a drug kingpin. It explains the size discrepancy between the outside of his shop and the inside, why he only cares about this one specific hockey league (it’s a front), why a number of kids’ parents are gone (they are dead after getting caught up in the drug game), why he wasn’t there in D2 (Jan says it’s to see his mother in the old country, but he’s really just on the run) and explains his sudden death in D3 (he faked it to get out of the drug game), plus a ton of other things. Hans running a drug operation actually explains a lot of the movie when you think about it.

The other theory, although we didn’t fully prove it, is that Bombay was actually dead for most of D3. It completely changes the movie when you look at it that way.

Do you find that each of the co-hosts brings a specific flavor or aspect to the show? In what way does your chemistry work for the format?
I realized early on that the other two were funnier than I was, so I really focused on being more of a host to set up Tommy and Kevin.Tommy is kind of our Mighty Ducks philosopher. He usually has the big ideas and theories. Kevin is the wildcard. He has the outlandish ideas and jokes. We sit around and talk about weird stuff like this off the air. It doesn’t change all that much once we get in front of the mics.

If there were to be a fourth movie, what would your dream premise be? Should it be a new young generation of Ducks? Should it even be remade?
We came up with a full plot for D4 in Episode 100, then edited it a bit with listeners’ notes in Episode 101. It revolves around Charlie getting the Ducks back together for one last hurrah at the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships as a way to prove something to himself. Like all good kids’ movies, he learns a valuable lesson along the way. I think all the people of our generation would love to see the Ducks have one last go around. Hopefully that could then be a vehicle to open the door for sequels with a new generation of Ducks.