Why Gordon Bombay was the most over-rated coach of all time
Everyone I know has watched the Mighty Ducks, and Mighty Ducks 2, one of the rare sequels that in my mind surpassed it's predecessor. The problem I bring to you today is a simple one. Because of the success of the Ducks in said movies, people walk away under the gross assumption that Gordon Bombay, played by my good friend Steve Berthiuame/Emilio Estevez is a good hockey coach. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I will be focusing more on D2 for my arguement, simply because in D2 Bombay was chosen to coach a national hockey team, not some rink-a-dink Mite team in Podunkville, Minnesota. The first of my issues is the way he put together his squad, though director of Hendrix Sports, Don Tibbles, deserves some of the blame here as well. First off, they bring back most of the cast from the original Mighty Ducks movie, which is absolutely ridiculous. These kids, though winning a local championship the year before, weren't even the best team in their own local league. The Hawks would have beaten the Ducks easily in a 7 game series, probably 4-1 or maybe 4-2. Now all of the sudden, these kids from Minnesota are the best junior hockey players in the entire country? Please. Adam Banks, Fulton Reid (if he kept learning how to skate) and possibly Guy Germaine were the only people that should really have been considered for a spot on that club.
Then they go out and bring in a couple kids from across the country. Where did they find these kids? Hockey hotbeds like Michigan, North Dakota, Boston? Nope. They find kids from Chicago, Miami, San Francisco and Texas. They found one person from Maine (thank god!) but to tell me that you found the best young hockey players in the country and didn't dip into those areas is ludicrous.
So let's look at these studs they brought in for the national team. Chicago produced Dean Portman, a bad ass enforcer who had no other discernible hockey skills. I'll give them a pass on Portman, because he did give them a little toughness. Then they go to Miami to find Luis Mendoza, a lightning fast skater, who can't stop. The best players in the country are at your disposal, and you find a kid that has to crash into the fucking boards to slow down? Nice.
Next they went to San Fran, where they find converted figure skater Kenny Wu. Wow. First of all, he never would have pulled off his fancy figure skating trickery, like the triple axel he did to score against Iceland, because he COULDN'T WEAR FIGURE SKATES. He would be wearing hockey skates, rendering his figure skating abilities completely useless. Then we go to Texas to find Dwayne Robertson, a slick puck handler that would have been a decent player if he ever passed the god damn puck. All he did was screw around in the neutral zone, make a couple of people look bad, then get pummelled and give up possession of the puck. Nice.
The one real find they found was Julie "the Cat" Gaffney, from Bangor, Maine. She was a quick goaltender, and better than starting goalie Greg Goldberg in every concievable way. The only problem was, Bombay decided he felt like benching his best goalie until the last possible moment.
That brings me to Bombay's coaching decisions. While I will grant you that he is a good "Rah rah!" coach, his decision making is just atrocious. Let's start with his handling of Gaffney. Clearly the best goaltender on his team, he doesn't use her until the last penalty shot against Iceland. So you are going to take a goalie with exactly 0 minutes played in the tournament, and ask her to stop impending super stud Gunner Stahl? Even though it worked out, it was absolutely ridiculous. And not for nothing, even if you were hell bent on making Goldberg your starting goalie, you couldn't have found any time for Julie? Was it really imperative that Goldberg played the third period against Italy while you were up 6-0? And you really mean to tell me should couldn't have gotten a spot start against fucking Trinadad and Tobago? You absolutely, positively had to have your "best" goalie play against a team whose country is in the Carribbean? You couldn't have found a little time for her coach?
How about the fact that you let Lester Averman even play, ever? He should never have been on the team, he was god awful, and I would have loved to take a look at his plus minus rating. Yet somehow he managed to get ice time every game. Unreal.
And last but not least, how you handled the shootout was just borderline embarrassing, even the moves that did work out. Fulton Reid and Dwayne Robertson taking penalty shots? Fulton had a killer slap shot, yes, but on a penalty shot, he wouldn't be firing it through a screen, or anything like that. The Iceland goalie would have a clear look at it the whole time, and would have almost certainly stopped it. If you wanted to have somebody out there to take a shot from the blue line, why not have Russ Tyler tee up the knuckle puck? They triple cover him the whole game so he can't get the shot off, and now you can guarentee that he'll have a chance to shoot it, and you let him sit on the bench? Nicely done. Dwayne was always too tricky for his own good, always made one move too many, and it was the most predictable thing of all time that he got stuffed. I wouldn't let him anywhere near a tournament changing penalty shot. Banks and Germaine were easy decisions, they had to take them, and the same with Jesse Hall. But Reid and Robertson? Give me a break.
The moral of the story is, Bombay sucks. And if he never got a DUI in the first movie, he wouldn't have been a coach in the first place. Nuff said.
I will be focusing more on D2 for my arguement, simply because in D2 Bombay was chosen to coach a national hockey team, not some rink-a-dink Mite team in Podunkville, Minnesota. The first of my issues is the way he put together his squad, though director of Hendrix Sports, Don Tibbles, deserves some of the blame here as well. First off, they bring back most of the cast from the original Mighty Ducks movie, which is absolutely ridiculous. These kids, though winning a local championship the year before, weren't even the best team in their own local league. The Hawks would have beaten the Ducks easily in a 7 game series, probably 4-1 or maybe 4-2. Now all of the sudden, these kids from Minnesota are the best junior hockey players in the entire country? Please. Adam Banks, Fulton Reid (if he kept learning how to skate) and possibly Guy Germaine were the only people that should really have been considered for a spot on that club.
Then they go out and bring in a couple kids from across the country. Where did they find these kids? Hockey hotbeds like Michigan, North Dakota, Boston? Nope. They find kids from Chicago, Miami, San Francisco and Texas. They found one person from Maine (thank god!) but to tell me that you found the best young hockey players in the country and didn't dip into those areas is ludicrous.
So let's look at these studs they brought in for the national team. Chicago produced Dean Portman, a bad ass enforcer who had no other discernible hockey skills. I'll give them a pass on Portman, because he did give them a little toughness. Then they go to Miami to find Luis Mendoza, a lightning fast skater, who can't stop. The best players in the country are at your disposal, and you find a kid that has to crash into the fucking boards to slow down? Nice.
Next they went to San Fran, where they find converted figure skater Kenny Wu. Wow. First of all, he never would have pulled off his fancy figure skating trickery, like the triple axel he did to score against Iceland, because he COULDN'T WEAR FIGURE SKATES. He would be wearing hockey skates, rendering his figure skating abilities completely useless. Then we go to Texas to find Dwayne Robertson, a slick puck handler that would have been a decent player if he ever passed the god damn puck. All he did was screw around in the neutral zone, make a couple of people look bad, then get pummelled and give up possession of the puck. Nice.
The one real find they found was Julie "the Cat" Gaffney, from Bangor, Maine. She was a quick goaltender, and better than starting goalie Greg Goldberg in every concievable way. The only problem was, Bombay decided he felt like benching his best goalie until the last possible moment.
That brings me to Bombay's coaching decisions. While I will grant you that he is a good "Rah rah!" coach, his decision making is just atrocious. Let's start with his handling of Gaffney. Clearly the best goaltender on his team, he doesn't use her until the last penalty shot against Iceland. So you are going to take a goalie with exactly 0 minutes played in the tournament, and ask her to stop impending super stud Gunner Stahl? Even though it worked out, it was absolutely ridiculous. And not for nothing, even if you were hell bent on making Goldberg your starting goalie, you couldn't have found any time for Julie? Was it really imperative that Goldberg played the third period against Italy while you were up 6-0? And you really mean to tell me should couldn't have gotten a spot start against fucking Trinadad and Tobago? You absolutely, positively had to have your "best" goalie play against a team whose country is in the Carribbean? You couldn't have found a little time for her coach?
How about the fact that you let Lester Averman even play, ever? He should never have been on the team, he was god awful, and I would have loved to take a look at his plus minus rating. Yet somehow he managed to get ice time every game. Unreal.
And last but not least, how you handled the shootout was just borderline embarrassing, even the moves that did work out. Fulton Reid and Dwayne Robertson taking penalty shots? Fulton had a killer slap shot, yes, but on a penalty shot, he wouldn't be firing it through a screen, or anything like that. The Iceland goalie would have a clear look at it the whole time, and would have almost certainly stopped it. If you wanted to have somebody out there to take a shot from the blue line, why not have Russ Tyler tee up the knuckle puck? They triple cover him the whole game so he can't get the shot off, and now you can guarentee that he'll have a chance to shoot it, and you let him sit on the bench? Nicely done. Dwayne was always too tricky for his own good, always made one move too many, and it was the most predictable thing of all time that he got stuffed. I wouldn't let him anywhere near a tournament changing penalty shot. Banks and Germaine were easy decisions, they had to take them, and the same with Jesse Hall. But Reid and Robertson? Give me a break.
The moral of the story is, Bombay sucks. And if he never got a DUI in the first movie, he wouldn't have been a coach in the first place. Nuff said.
This continues to make me laugh uproariously.
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