The Mighty Ducks

The film starts off with the main protagonist Bombay, as an attorney who likes to cheat his way into winning his cases. Building such a reputation with the judge for his cases, when he encounters his own issues with the law, the same judge does not sentence lightly and sends him to complete community service. But he doesn’t learn his lesson. When his community service involves becoming a coach to a struggling pee-wee hockey team, he teaches them to try and cheat as well by gaining as many penalty calls against the opposing team as possible. This quickly makes the team lose respect for their coach since they want to win an ethical way. It is only after seeing it through others that he realizes there are consequences for his actions.

The scene is set back to a young Bombay on the ice back when he was a young pee-wee player himself. He is alone on the ice about to take a penalty shot. He shoots! He misses! Fast forward to the modern era the film takes place in, and he doesn’t really play hockey anymore. It is implied it may have been because of that moment he faced as a kid when he failed his team. It is not until he is much older, that he dives deep into his feelings and realizes that it was actually because of the loss of his father when he was young, that he did not want to play anymore. It is always a good lesson to confront moments in your past that seem to impact your present and possibly your future. Without doing so, we may allow old feelings to haunt us but never fully understand why. Bombay eventually joins a men’s hockey league for himself since he learned it was not his lack of skill that stopped him from playing over the years.

Communication is everything! If you do not properly communicate with your team members, there will be problems. The Mighty Ducks demonstrates this when Bombay is being overheard by some of his players speaking poorly about them. Little do they know that he was actually being sarcastic and thoroughly respected them as his team members. If his team confronted him in the first place, a lot of drama and negativity could have been avoided. When you work as a team, it is essential you stay in the loop with your team members. If this team did not, the Ducks would have seized to exist.

One thing we can appreciate about a good sports film is the moral compass it demonstrates to its viewers. A film like The Mighty Ducks does just that. In under two hours, I was reminded of the importance of remembering that everything I do has a consequence, to always confront parts of my past even if it seems hard and that if you don’t open up about what is bothering you, you are only hurting yourself.