A Mighty Team

The Mighty Ducks (also known as D1: The Mighty Ducks, and Champions in the United Kingdom and Australia) is a 1992 American sports comedy drama film directed by Stephen Herek and written by Steven Brill. It is the first film in the Mighty Ducks franchise. The film stars Emilio Estevez, Joss Ackland, and Lane Smith. It follows a self-centered Minnesota lawyer who is sentenced to community service coaching a ragtag youth hockey team. In some countries, the home release copies were printed with the title as The Mighty Ducks Are the Champions to avoid confusion with the title of the sequel. The Mighty Ducks was released in the United States on October 2, 1992, by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. Despite receiving mostly negative reviews from critics, the film was a financial success, grossing $50.8 million over its $14 million budget. The year after the film's release, The Walt Disney Company founded an NHL hockey team, named the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.