With what will surely be another disappointing playoff defeat of the Minnesota Twins at the hands of the New York Yankees in the MLB Wild Card single elimination game imminent, it is important to take time to reflect on the best sports team in Minnesota history: coach Gordon Bombay’s Mighty Ducks. I firmly believe that

D2: The Mighty Ducks

(1994) is the best sports movie of all time, defeating classics like

Remember the Titans, The Blindside

,

Hoosiers

and another Minnesota masterpiece

Miracle

. In fact, the second film in the

Mighty Ducks

trilogy might be the greatest movie of all time, regardless of genre.

In the first

Mighty Ducks

film, coach Gordon Bombay (portrayed by Emilio Estevez) leads a group of misfits to victory in the Pee Wee Championship thanks to an unreal “triple deke” by team captain Charlie Conway. In the sequel,

D2,

Gordon Bombay returns to Minneapolis to coach the Ducks again in the Junior Goodwill Games after a knee injury ends his professional hockey-playing aspirations. What follows is the most exhilarating sports film in history, replete with villainous Scandinavians, a new cast of elite players and the resonant themes of heart, camaraderie and teamwork that made the first film deserving of a sequel.

The Goodwill Games reunite everyone’s favorite cast of characters from the first film, including “Captain Duck” Conway, the lovable cake-eater Adam Banks, Philly goaltender Greg Goldberg, enforcer Fulton Reed, comic relief Les Averman, and underrated forward Guy Germaine. The opening scene where the team assembles for a new international challenge will be studied in cinema classes for years to come. Conway, donning his green and yellow Ducks jersey, rollerblades across the Minnesota metropolitan area, making stops at the legendary Mall of America, Stone Arch Bridge, and Loring Park, signaling his arrival to his teammates with a duck call. Averman sums up the gang getting back together perfectly: “The quack attack is back.”

To bolster the already elite Minnesota-exclusive squad, Bombay must bring in enforcements to compete with the world’s best junior hockey players. Bombay recruits five players across the country to provide a little spice to the good-natured Midwestern roster. Luis Mendoza out of Miami is the fastest skater in youth hockey, Dwayne Robertson from Texas has the filthiest dangles I’ve ever seen, Olympic figure skater Kenny Wu proves his grit on the ice by fighting an Iceland skater (stick, gloves, shirt) and Dean Portman slots in perfectly next to Reed to form the “Bash Brothers,” the most lethal enforcer duo on the planet. Late addition Russ Tyler’s infamous “knucklepuck” proved to be the most unstoppable and unpredictable offensive asset for the Ducks. Rounding out the reinforcements is Julie “The Cat” Gaffney, who has the quickest glove between the pipes since Patrick Roy.

Like any excellent sports movie, the team suffers significant setbacks when Banks goes down with a wrist injury, Bombay overworks the kids to the point that they lose their passion for the game and the team suffers an embarrassing loss to Iceland early in the tournament. To get Bombay back on the path to gold, Jan, the brother of Bombay’s mentor, who urges Bombay to remember his passion for the game. Rejuvenated by the return of their coach and leader, the Ducks rattle off victories to reach the championship game against, you guessed it, Iceland. Side note, Iceland, whose best finish in a hockey world championship is 30th, is a hilarious country to choose as the rivals for the U.S.

The championship game provides many of my favorite moments in cinematic history. First, there is Conway’s heroic act of sacrifice to give up his roster spot to Banks to solidify his role as team leader and protagonist. Then there is the “Ducks fly together” speech before the third period commences. Down three goals, Bombay urges his team to be themselves, then proceeds to ask every player in the locker room to say their name and hometown. I frequently imagine myself in that locker room shouting “Patrick Malin, Plymouth, Minnesota,” but, alas, never learning how to skate did not help my real life recreation of this event. I get goosebumps every time I rewatch the scene when Jan enters the picture, exclaiming “We are Ducks, and Ducks fly together.” I even watch the scene before heading into final exams to get in a championship mindset.

Obviously, the Ducks storm back to send the game to a shootout, the most dramatic event in sports. Bombay executes one of the boldest substitutions in history by taking Goldberg out in favor of Gaffney to face Iceland star, Gunnar Stahl, with the game on the line. In one of the worst decisions in sports history, Stahl pulls up and fires a slapshot gloveside on Gaffney. After a moment of suspense, Gaffney calmly flips the puck out of her mitt and onto the ice.

Growing up in Minnesota, the

Mighty Ducks

movies were cultural staples with a large impact on daily life in the upper Midwest. Young hockey players would be out all day practicing their triple dekes and knuckle pucks. Pee Wee championships gained a new prestige. Everyone wanted to become the modern version of their favorite Ducks player. Although they had departed from their Minnesota roots, everyone was proud to see the Ducks conquer the world powers at the rink, even if it was a work of pure fiction. Although filled with sports movie clichés,

D2

is wildly entertaining and is filled with heart, combining suspenseful sporting action with moments of teamwork and friendship. The spirit of Minnesota is captured through the lens of youth hockey in

D2

, which results in intense feelings of nostalgia and significant attachment to the characters populating the Ducks’ roster for Minnesotans like myself. I live by the words of Bombay every day: “When everyone says it can’t be done, Ducks fly together.”