Come Friday next week, Disney+ will premiere on streaming the sequel series to their 1990s ice hockey trilogy “The Mighty Ducks.” In a retread of the standard plucky underdog athletes story, “The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers” sees the formation of a new peewee hockey team in Minneapolis against a surprise opponent: the Mighty Ducks, now a successful competitive squad with a current-gen roster and staff that are arrogant and elitist. Under the reluctant guidance of Emilio Estevez as a worn-down Coach Gordon Bombay, can these wannabe champions stand against the now-“cake-eating” Ducks and show the spirit the original incarnation had?

Entertainment Weekly has some juicy exclusive info on what else to expect from “The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers” coming to Disney+. Original film writer and series show-runner Steven Brill has some welcome blurbs on just what the now-grownup original members of Minneapolis’ District 5 Mighty Ducks have been up to as of the timeframe of “Game Changers.” This is relevant considering that some of the actors from the films will be reprising their characters in the series, a bombshell that was dropped this past Thursday, March 18. Apparently the returning veteran cast will figure in “Game Changers” episode 6, the plot outline of which Brill is only happy to share.

In the episode in question, Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez) runs into one of his former players, Fulton Reed (Elden Henson). Apparently some of the former Ducks have been invited to a gala hosted by the current, more antagonistic iteration. Bombay was not invited there, so Fulton takes him to meet the other veterans at a smaller reunion. When Bombay notes that the current Ducks freeze him out of galas, it leads to a misunderstanding that eventually leads to the OGs meeting the Duck castoffs under Gordon’s care, and realize that their legacy has turned into that of their one-time adversaries.

Brill then notes the current status of the returning characters in “Game Changers.” Aside from Fulton, there is Connie (Marguerite Moreau), Minnesota state senator who started a family with boyfriend-now-husband Guy (Garrette Henson); Justin Wong’s Ken Wu has become a California tech startup founder; onetime “cake-eater” Adam Banks (Vinny La Russo) has followed in Bombay’s footsteps as a lawyer; as for bespectacled Duck-snark Averman (Matt Doherty), his circumstances actually tie into the plot, so Brill is keeping mum for now.

There are notable absences in the veteran Duck lineup that were unable to be part of the series, such as Joshua Jackson and Kenan Thompson. Steven Brill hopes they might somehow be a part in the future, should the show go into more seasons. For now, “Mighty Ducks: Game Changers,” also starring Lauren Graham and Brady Noon, is set for Disney+ streaming on March 26.

Image courtesy of TVLine

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