If there is one element that is truly dominating within entertainment currently, it’s nostalgia. Many movies and series are looking to revisit the glory days of the 1980s and 1990s, trying to draw upon the nostalgia of the era and get audiences excited for new takes on those properties. Well, prepare for more as another big comeback, as ice hockey franchise The Mighty Ducks is lacing up its ice-skates once again.
Instead of just rebooting the franchise with another movie based around new characters though, Disney is instead going the Karate Kid route and making this a sequel series that sees Emilio Estevez return as former Mighty Ducks coach Gordon Bombay, ready to inspire another young kid (Brady Noon) to become a force on the ice rink. With some further inspiration from his mother (Lauren Graham) thrown in for good measure.
If it all sounds a little too cliched, it’s because it does and now the first trailer for the series has arrived to show if Disney’s new series is the next Cobra Kai or just another nostalgia-fueled slapshot:
In the 10-episode season set-in present-day Minnesota, the Mighty Ducks have evolved from scrappy underdogs to an ultra-competitive, powerhouse youth hockey team. After 12-year-old Evan Morrow (Brady Noon) is unceremoniously cut from the Ducks, he and his mom, Alex (Lauren Graham), set out to build their own team of misfits to challenge the cutthroat, win-at-all-costs culture of youth sports today. With the help of Gordon Bombay, they rediscover the joys of playing just for the love of the game.
It’s perhaps too difficult to tell based on this trailer, but Cobra Kai it probably isn’t. While the YouTube Red (and now Netflix) hit Karate Kid show has become massively popular based on how it was able to not just draw upon nostalgia but turn the original concept on its head with an inversion of protagonist/ antagonist tropes and incredibly mature storytelling, this series looks like it might just be a little too predictable and innocent to have the same effect.
That doesn’t mean it won’t have plenty of heart and the series definitely allows for plenty of deep character building that could really show us a deeper side to Estevez’s more comedic character from the movies.
What this series also has going for it is that it’s being co-created by Steven Brill, who created the original movies. Brill is also joined by Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa (The King of Queens, 13 Going On 30) who will serve as showrunners with James Griffiths directing the pilot. It’s a decent creative team that will could make this series a success.
I was a big fan of the three Mighty Ducks movies as a kid and am definitely intrigued by what this series can do, even if my tastes have changed drastically since then. The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers will debut on Disney+ starting on March 26, 2021, with new episodes arriving weekly.
Last Updated: February 1, 2021
