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OC Register: Miller: 25 years ago, Michael Eisner introduced us to the Ducks and ‘Coach Goofy’


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The idea was met largely with groans. You know, like a bad joke.

The lead of a story in The Orange County Register announcing that an NHL expansion team would be coming to Anaheim concluded by warning “and it could be called The Mighty Ducks.”

To the clear-headed world, such a thing seemed completely silly, of course. But then, why not?

This was the Walt Disney Co., after all, and there was its then-chairman, Michael Eisner, appearing at a news conference wearing an oversized green-and-yellow jersey from the movie and a cap that read “Coach Goofy.”

I’d like to tell you I made up the facts in that previous paragraph and that I made up the quote in the next paragraph. Sadly, though, this stuff is all true. Ridiculous but true.

“Whenever I suggest the title ‘Mighty Ducks,’” Eisner said that day, standing behind a podium that featured stuffed Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse dolls, “six people tell me no hockey player will play for that team.”

Here was the controlling owner of a maiden franchise, addressing the public for the first time in his new capacity, with his fellow owners also listening closely, calling the franchise’s potential nickname a “title.”

Frankly, a quarter century later, it’s somewhat amazing that the Ducks survived as such neophytes. This fish wasn’t just out of water. This fish was attempting to swim down the 405 Freeway.

It was 25 years ago this week that the Ducks came to be, Eisner officially accepting the NHL-issued birth certificate at a meeting of the league’s owners in Palm Beach, Fla.

At the time, Orange County never had hosted an NHL game, Anaheim Arena wasn’t yet completed and, across the street, the California Angels were coming off a 90-loss season in which their leading home-run hitter was Gary Gaetti. With 12.

In other words, there’s wasn’t a ton of momentum, the NHL not even expected to award expansion teams at those meetings, Disney making all this happen by insisting the company was ready.

Still, the very notion of ice hockey here – despite Wayne Gretzky playing right up the road with the Kings – remained a bit foreign, this Canadian import just another happy transplant from a place with bad weather.

But, now, think about this: only three of our eight franchises in the four major team sports were born and raised here and remain today without having ever left, and two of them are the Ducks and Kings.

The Angels are the third, a reality easy to forget in a market otherwise dominated in popularity by the Dodgers and Lakers and, in recent weeks, Rams – three franchises that once belonged to someone else.

In a manner that feels a little odd and slightly impossible, these three teams are more us than any of the others, their relative lack of all-time championships their greatest shortcoming.

They’re as Southern California as the Hollywood sign, Santa Monica Pier and In-N-Out Burger, though not quite as iconic.

They’re Metallica on skates, the Eagles in polyester stretch pants – established entertainment institutions founded in the one place that knows entertainment like no other.

This isn’t meant to disparage our other five teams. Frankly, who can blame them? They moved here for the same reason as so many others. Because they weren’t lucky enough to be born here.

The Chargers left San Diego to return to their original home, and who abandons “America’s Finest City” without a compelling reason?

No one, that’s who. Unless you’re the Chargers or the Clippers, who also discovered that the sand is always sandier on the other side of the fence.

Sure, the actual explanations for why those two teams relocated here are much more complicated.

But let’s keep this simple, the 25th anniversary of the Ducks’ first steps a nice, tidy excuse to recognize the Southland’s Original Three.

In February, the Kings will mark 52 years since the day Jack Kent Cooke was awarded an expansion team.

It was 57 years ago last week that Gene Autry secured the franchise he would call the Angels.

And 25 years ago, Disney bought its way into the NHL for $50 million, which is less than what the Ducks have tied up today in Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and Cam Fowler apiece.

“We made a movie called ‘The Mighty Ducks,’ which did unbelievably well,” Eisner said back then. “That was our market research.”

As lame as the “title” sounded to many people, readers of the O.C. Register submitted a variety of possibilities that were worse. Among them: California Shakes, Orange County Bigfoot and Anaheim Asterisks.

Someone also suggested Mice on Ice, but they had to be kidding, right?

At a pep rally in March of 1993, as Disney characters danced with hockey sticks and a collection of civic leaders – armed with duck calls – quacked in unison, the Mighty Ducks nickname became official.

“See?” Eisner said, excitedly shouting over the clatter. “It’s gonna work! This will work!”

Turns out – even though the “Mighty” part has since been dropped – he was right. All these years later, how could we have ever doubted Coach Goofy?

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