In 1994, a young upstart PeeWee Hockey team from District Five in Minneapolis, Minnesota was recruited to form the backbone of Team USA – the national side sent to represent the country at the Junior Goodwill Games. This, in large part, was due to the appointment of Coach Gordon Bombay, a former defence attorney-cum-minor league hockey star, to the role of national coach for the Junior side. Bombay would fill the bulk of his team with the squad of the District Five Ducks, the team he successfully took from also-rans to Minneapolis PeeWee Champions. Despite significant challenges including, but not limited to, in-house fighting, arrogance, a formidable opponent in the team representing Iceland, and a bizarre mid-game team identity crisis, the Team USA Ducks ultimately triumphed, conquering Iceland to take out gold.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of that glorious triumph – famously immortalised in the Disney documentary, D2: The Mighty Ducks. And to mark that occasion, the former players gathered for a reunion – indeed, to quack one more time.
Here, we have Luis Mendoza (Mike Vitar), Guy Germaine (Garette Ratliff Henson), Connie Moreau (Marguerite Moreau), Adam Banks (Vincent LaRusso), one half of the infamous Bash Brothers, Dean Portman (Aaron Lohr) and Icelandic dynamo Gunner Stahl (Scott Whyte).
Former D5 Duck David Karp (Aaron Schwartz).
Team mouthpiece Les Averman (Matt Doherty) on the left, with the man who wrote the documentary series on the team Steven Brill.
Connie Moreau again, this time with star goaltender from Bangor, Maine – Julie “The Cat” Gaffney (Colombe Jacobson).
And team first-string goaltender Greg Goldberg (Shaun Weiss).
Unfortunately on this particular occasion, Coach Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez), LA street hockey expert Russ Tyler (Kenan Thompson) and the team’s inspirational captain Charlie Conway (Joshua Jackson) all couldn’t make it to this particular flock gathering.
But that certainly didn’t stop everyone else from forming a picture perfect FLYING V.
Say it with me now!
QUACK. QUACK. QUACK. QUACK. QUACK. QUACK. QUACK. QUACK.
