I only know of the real-life Mighty Ducks team because of Disney, so I understand your issue with Samueli Adams-a. Please pardon my bad Italian accent for that joke.
But if Henry wanted to remove the Disney brand, why not partner up with WB instead? I'm sure this would be Daffy's big comeback in a way that doesn't insult him.
Right. The Disney connection was what drew non-fans to the team and the NHL as a whole in general.
On the other hand, IOTL, there were a lot of sportswriters who treated the club like the Harlem Globetrotters just because of the Disney ties. But from my point of view, that felt like a ridiculous reason to rebrand.
Therefore, even though the team eventually reached the pinnacle of their sport after the rebrand, I feel that the overhaul to the team's entire look was what alienated the casual fans who knew of the team from either the movie trilogy or the animated show.
Before 2006 IOTL | After 2006 IOTL |
|
|
IOTL, I was in kindergarten when the Ducks came into the NHL. I became a fan for two reasons. First, I was already a Disney geek and secondly, they still are the closest OTL NHL franchise to San Diego where I still live. IOTL, I was 15 by the time the Ducks made their first Stanley Cup appearance, which they lost to the New Jersey Devils in about 6 or 7 games. I wanted the Ducks to win just because I felt a championship would shed the stigma that hockey purists attached to the original look.
ITTL, the idea of San Diego being the home to TTL's version of the Mighty Duck team was a suggestion from another user in the previous thread. I ran with it because that was my chance to have Walt Disney, Jr. bring an expansion team to my hometown. The expansion fee ITTL was about $25 million USD, half the fee Michael Eisner paid IOTL. By basing the team in San Diego instead of Orange County, that butterflied the need for Junior to compensate the Los Angeles Kings to share the Greater LA market, which Gary Bettman required Michael Eisner to do IOTL.
The idea of Tiffany becoming a team owner at such a young age is not too weird if you dig deeper. In 1920 IOTL, George Halas was about 24 when he was first hired to be the very first player-coach for the Decatur Staleys, the small-town Illinois football team that would eventually become the Chicago Bears. IOTL, Lamar Hunt was 28 when he established a football team that eventually became the Kansas City Chiefs in the early 1960's. In 1968 IOTL, Jerry Colangelo was only 29 when the Phoenix Suns hired him to be their very first general manager before he eventually bought the team.