The season could have been better.
NOTE: This article has been updated since Disney announced the cancellation of the series along with Big Shot.
Season 2 of The Mighty Ducks Game Changers recently concluded and boy was it a doozy.
After years of delays, Disney Plus finally launched in the Philippines and we at The Geeky Juans got to watch both seasons of The Mighty Ducks TV series and we have a LOT to say.
- Season 1 had a more consistent storyline and had a long-term vision of what they wanted to do
- Season 2 was a mess. Inconsistent plot points. Declaring hockey is the enemy in a HOCKEY camp and so much more.
- Where the heck did these random summer camp relationships come from without first establishing the crush?
- And so much more
Anyway let’s cut to the chase. We’re breaking down the review into three categories: the plot, the characters and the hockey.
The Plot
The story of Mighty Ducks Season 2 involves our Mighty Ducks, led by their Coach Alex Morrow and her son also the team Captain Evan Morrow attending an Elite Hockey Camp in California because, well, we will find out later in this article.
Yeah they did it again ladies and gentlemen. The Mighty Ducks LOVE their nepotism. First there was Charlie Conway becoming Captain because Gordon Bombay wanted to get inside Charlie’s mom’s pants UGH.
And now we have Evan becoming Captain because he supposedly had qualities to show that he was worthy of becoming Captain…which to be fair he did do in Season 1. So I will accept Evan as Captain for now.
This season featured the Ducks attending an Elite Hockey Camp where the best kids in the US would hone their skills before facing a team of Canadian All-Stars in the last episode. Somehow I forgot this plot point because it was tossed in the back for about 8 episodes.
The plot of the series is all over the place the attempting to describe what else is going on would be a waste of time.
Even Season 1, with its faults, was not as confusing as Season 2. I don’t know if a majority of the crew left or something but I really wish the whole story was more streamlined instead of adding random subplots left and right thus making the show forget that we’re supposed to be in a hockey camp.
The Characters
One of the major points of Season 2 was that Gordon Bombay did not join the kids on the drive from Minnesota to California. That’s because Emilio Estevez reportedly was not a fan of the series’ creative direction and I don’t blame him after watching this season.
The kids are talented. I’ll get that out of the way. They were burdened by awkward scripts including lines like the “Smash Siblings” to replace the popular “Bash Brothers” of the original movies.
I feel bad for these kids. They deserve better storylines than playing characters nicknamed with what sounds like a euphemism for sex. Seriously. Why would you give these children’s characters terrible characters?
Now off to the main characters of Evan Morrow, Sofi Hanson-Bhatt and the rest of the kids.
(Image from Disney Plus)
I barely got to know them this season. The series only focused on the teenage problems of the kids. Yes they are teenagers but they’re also in a hockey camp.
The series about kids in a hockey camp barely focused on kids being a in a hockey camp.
Sure we got to see characters like Nick attempt to escape the camp which was hilarious. He even ended up in what looked like a Hilton-subsidiary hotel somewhere.
When the conflict comes from being in the hockey camp the show made sense and the characters made sense. They were trying to survive hockey camp!
And then halfway past the season we get these crazy love pairings that came out of nowhere. The writers just randomly placed a bunch of characters in different love teams and expect the viewers to care for the characters….
Seriously?
I did learn recently, through the Quack Attack Podcast, that the writers for Season 2 are not hockey fans. Fine I can get that but at least watch the old movies and review it to see that the conflict comes from being better kids through hockey and not making hockey the enemy.
Why would Sofi, the BEST player the Ducks had, suddenly say that hockey is evil. You’re in a hockey camp! The writers make it seem like they threw the character’s traits in a blender and threw the mush to see what sticks.
Koob, the goalie, was finally improving in Season 1 and then he backtracks in Season 2 completely. That doesn’t make sense! Kids definitely have off days but you don’t expect them to suddenly go all the way back to their previous form.
The characters were not being written like kid hockey players.
I truly feel bad for the kids. The adults too! They deserved better writers.
The Cameos
Speaking of the adults, I wanted to take a quick second to discuss the cameos of the Anaheim Ducks players mainly: Troy Terry, Trevor Zegras, Max Jones & Cam Fowler.
The show only named Cam Fowler on the show… and yes. His surname really is Fowler so it was perfect to feature him on the show!
Now I looked back at the previous movies and Season 1 of Game Changers, and I noticed something.
The characters made sure to mention the names of the players! Look I just want the NHL to succeed, and one way of succeeding is by marketing the players properly. Neither Disney nor the NHL did that for Mighty Ducks Game Changers.
The first Mighty Ducks movie made sure that Gordon Bombay would mention then Minnesota North Stars: Mike Modano and Basil McRae.
The second Mighty Ducks movie mentioned Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wayne Gretzky.
Even the third movie featured Paul Kariya in a quick cameo and MENTIONED his name.
Game Changers Season 2 never mentioned the names of Zegras, Terry or Jones. Forgetting to name the trio of Ducks really doesn’t make up for things even when the characters mentioned Cam Fowler by name.
Yeah it’s an old TV trope to mention actors or public figures as explicitly as possible but hockey players are always wearing helmets and visors that cover their faces. Disney or the NHL, at the very least could have given just a few seconds to mention Trevor Zegras aka the most marketable player in the NHL right now and his teammates.
What’s even more disappointing to see is that the Anaheim Ducks have not been this marketable to mainstream audiences since Paul Kariya himself was an active player and helped grow the game in Southern California.
The NHL and Disney had a huge, missed opportunity to promote the game of hockey and they failed.
And now that we’re on the topic of hockey, let’s do that hockey!
The Hockey
We barely had any hockey this season. I find this sentence very ironic to type because the Mighty Ducks were in a hockey camp and we barely had any hockey this whole season.
Based on my gut feeling, I think the first season of Mighty Ducks Game Changers had more hockey scenes than the entirety of Season 2 Episode 10. Seriously.
We rarely, if ever, saw the kids play hockey at all in a hockey camp.
The whole idea of not having hockey scenes in hockey camp sounds so ludicrous that I can’t believe Disney and the writing team was able to do such a terrible job at doing it.
And speaking of the hockey camp, I was able to listen to an episode of the Quack Attack Podcast that featured the hockey coordinator of the show, Christopher V. Nelson.
The episode with Nelson defintely changed my perspective on the hockey work of the show when he mentioned that so many scenes had to be changed because the writers thought the hockey didn’t look dramatic enough for tv.
Again, it seems the writers of the show had a disjointed view of hockey from the start when they would argue with the hockey coordinator.
The REAL Knucle Puck
One of my expectations from Game Changers was that the show would finally give kids a more realistic view of ice hockey just like movies such as Miracle or shows like Shoresy did.
I don’t know what else happened behind the scenes but realism definitely went out the door!
Christopher Nelson had to show the crew how the knuckle puck works in real life and, as it turns out, the set up isn’t as long as it is in the Mighty Ducks films.
As you can see on the video from the NHL Network, players just sweep the puck on its edge then hope for the best. The end result is not as dramatic as the version of the Knuckle Puck we see on the Game Changers tv show but the puck movement is still unpredictable.
I’ve been a fan of The Mighty Ducks franchise ever since I saw D3 on Laserdisc and Game Changers Season 2 has made me so disappointed in the franchise.
Dare I say it…even the corny 90s cartoon had better writers! They had hockey too but at least the series wasn’t mocking hockey like Season 2 of Game Changers did.
The focus of Game Changers Season 2 was all about the kids improving in hockey camp and they barely did that.
Mighty Ducks Game Changers Season 2 is a major disappointment as both a fan of the Mighty Ducks media franchise and the Anaheim Ducks hockey team.
The writing was all over the place. The kid actors were forced to deliver cringe-inducing lines that even adults would not dare say.
My Anaheim Ducks were not mentioned properly and Disney missed a huge opportunity to introduce the sport of ice hockey to a wider audience.
For a show about ice hockey we barely saw any ice hockey this season.
The Last Quack
Overall, Mighty Ducks Game Changers Season 2 was a disappointment because of the lack of focus on hockey and the inconsistent and, creepy, script. You’re better off watching Season 1 and skipping Season 2 unless you want to watch the Anaheim Ducks’ cameos.
Final Score:
1 Duck out of 5
The Geeky Juans 