Things have not been going particularly well for the Anaheim Ducks of late, but Wednesday was a pretty good night at the arena. Not only did the Ducks shut out the Canucks to snap a seven-game losing streak, but they also had some special guests in attendance for Mighty Ducks Trivia Night.
Several members of the original 'Mighty Ducks' cast showed up to be part of a pregame puck-drop ceremony celebrating the 1992 film. Among them were Elden Henson (Fulton Reed), Marguerite Moreau (Connie Moreau), Aaron Schwartz (Dave Karp), Danny Tamberelli (Tommy Duncan), Matt Doherty (Les Averman) and Vincent LaRusso (Adam Banks).
There were a few notable absences from the group, including Joshua Jackson (Charlie Conway) and Emelio Estevez (Gordon Bombay). Also, it seemed fair to expect Shaun Weiss (Goldberg) to not be there given all of his personal and legal troubles of late.
The cast came out wearing their original District 5 Ducks sweaters and were part of a ceremonial face-off before the game. The actual hockey team also happened to be wearing their third jerseys with the Mighty Ducks logo that was introduced by the movie franchise. It was pretty neat stuff.
Considering the Ducks went on to blank Vancouver 1-0 for their third win since Dec. 18 -- they've lost 19 of 22 since then -- maybe the cast should be considered a good luck charm and be invited back for every game.
Better yet, the Ducks should honor the movie by putting the "Mighty" back in their name and going back to their original (and incredible) jerseys that they wore up until 2006.
As for why the name and the jerseys changed in the first place, former general manager Brian Burke took a lot of credit for that this week. Burke became an executive with the Ducks in 2005 and a year later, the team rebranded under new ownership.
"In the interview, they said to me, what do you think of the name of the team?" said Burke in an interview with Sportsnet 590 on Wednesday. "I said 'well, it sucks.' And they said 'what do you think of our uniforms?' I said 'the uniforms suck too.' So they committed in the interview they said to they were committed to changing the name and changing the uniforms."
Considering how much Burke seems to hate fun things in hockey, this story seems to check out. Thanks a lot, pal.
