When Teemu Selanne joined Paul Kariya to copilot the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, their subsequent success reminded everyone that the name does not make the team.
Purists whose youth preceded Generation X had grunted at a gimmicky brand in a “nontraditional hockey market.” For its first three seasons, Disney’s NHL franchise was shadowed by its theatrical namesake and that movie’s 1994 sequel.
That hardly matter to millennials, many of whom were drawn to the real thing after first seeing hockey depicted in the original 1992 Mighty Ducks film. By taking the name and taking root as a regional rival to Wayne Gretzky’s Kings, Anaheim’s team had an easy starting hook.
The 1996 deal that brought Selanne from Winnipeg, however, arguably came at the 11th hour. People had come in person or through TV viewership, but needed a winning product to stay.
At the March 1993 unveiling of the brand, Disney chairman Michael Eisner himself acknowledged the marketing gamble. Per the Los Angeles Times, he said, “If we’re a very good team, I think it will be a great name. If we’re a very bad team, it will be a bad name.”
After three straight playoff no-shows, the 1996-97 Mighty Ducks built their first run of relevance around the Selanne-Kariya nucleus. A season that started with the film series’ third and final installment and coincided with a one-year animated TV show culminated in the real-life team’s first postseason appearance.
To sweeten that step forward, Anaheim ousted Selanne’s old allies, the Phoenix Coyotes (nee Winnipeg Jets), in seven games. As the aftermath of its honeymoon tapered off, the franchise was somewhere between the extremes from Eisner’s preemptive statement of caution. The Ducks were still not quite “a very good team,” but they were competitive.
The magic on the scoresheet fizzled in the second round at the hands of the eventual champion Red Wings, but the standard was firmly set. For committed and down-to-earth hockey fans, the name “Mighty Ducks” evoked Kariya and Selanne instead of Gordon Bombay and Charlie Conway.
As such, the name stuck with sufficient respectability until Disney sold the team and the new owners deleted the “Mighty” part of the moniker. Flanking that development were a run to the 2003 Stanley Cup Final — with Kariya still the face of the franchise — and a 2007 championship in Selanne’s second stint.
Fast-forward two decades from their first full year as teammates, and Selanne and Kariya are both ticketed for the Hockey Hall of Fame. Their simultaneous induction as part of an eight-member class will occur on Nov. 13.
In their four full seasons together in Anaheim, Selanne and Kariya took the Mighty Ducks to their first two playoff appearances. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
The ceremony will come precisely six weeks after the 25-year anniversary of the first Mighty Ducks movie’s release (Oct. 2). Unless you discount the 2004-05 NHL season that never was, both events will coincide with Anaheim’s 25th season of league membership.
For Anaheim fans, the unique flavor of the November event hinges on the preceding anniversaries. If Disney had never received, let alone approved the storyline for the film about a Cinderella Minnesota youth program, it likely would not have generated its own desire to spring for an NHL franchise.
Or, if it had done the latter, it would have at least taken on a different brand. But without the fresh Hollywood association, its bid might have lost a few points to another hungry market.
A different location, a different management group or both would have inevitably made for a different chronicle. In turn, odds are the Kariya-Selanne tandem would never have happened, thus depriving the 2017 Hall of Fame induction of its shiniest element of uniqueness.
Sometimes you need to grit your teeth through goofiness before gratification comes. You might say the timeline between the birth of the Mighty Ducks name and the enshrinement of the first two bona fide Anaheim NHL stars resembles that of a child’s upbringing and education.
The years of the three movies, the TV show and the expansion team’s formative seasons might as well have been the Mighty Ducks moniker’s infancy and toddlerhood. The first winning campaign, playoff appearance and playoff victory were kindergarten (a level Selanne himself taught).
The first Cup final and first Cup victory were graduation from grade school and junior high, respectively. For those who were unyieldingly exasperated by the Disney tie-ins, the fact that the championship coincided with the first season of the altered Anaheim Ducks brand signified passage into maturity all the more.
At the 25-year mark of the namesake film’s existence and the 24-year mark of the NHL team’s activity, you will have your graduate-school commencement in Toronto. The Nov. 13 festivities will be an uncannily well-timed culmination for the two players who consummated Anaheim’s place in hockey.
Much to Eisner’s undoubted relief, the Duck-puck endeavor proved far from a “fowl” stunt. He and his supporters can savor that for weeks this milestone-laden autumn.
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