MovieChat Forums > D2: The Mighty Ducks (1994) Discussion > Why Iceland?

Why Iceland?

posted 21 years ago by fairyqueen
82 replies | jump to latest

Anybody know why they chose Iceland the be the villainous team? Do they even play hockey there?

[–] fairyqueen 18 years ago

I found this on Wikipedia and was wondering if zanybody knows if it's true.

"The distribution rights were marketed at the Cannes Film Festival by Telefilm Canada, whose news release of 30 May 2006 reports that 'Cinémaginaire producer Denise Robert inked deals for The Rocket (Maurice Richard) with five Scandinavian countries: Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Denmark.'"

"The Rocket" distributed in Iceland?! Would even traditional hockey countries like Sweden and Finland be interested in a movie about a Canadian hockey player who retired over forty five years ago?

[–] CologneKev89 17 years ago

There are so many great hockey teams in the world, I don't get why they choose Iceland and why Trinidad & Tobago played there :-D

USA, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic..

[–] Shuya_Nobu 17 years ago

"I value mexico as a neighbor over canada. At least they aren't half french."

Except without France backing our ass in the Revolutionary War, there wouldnt even be an America as we know it. Seeing as they supplied arms AND men without which we would have been thoroughly trounced by the British in numerous battles. This after we had actually fought them not even 15 years previous. AND they had sustained heavy casualties in the French and Indian war as well as the seven years war which both brough about change in the structure of their military. Sooo let's not bash the French so much, especially since they're also responsible for giving us the very symbol of our liberty we always invoke when talking ourselves up in comparison to others.

The short one's gawking at me and the tall one's being very droll.

[–] simba122504 15 years ago

I have no idea. lol

I'm glad Obama won, but I will not jump on the Pro-Choice bandwagon

[–] techlite17-1 12 years ago

Why Iceland? Well there's a few things that I've come up with that would make them a good choice for the "villain" of the film.

Back then and even to this day few people, especially Americans, know much if anything about Iceland. I'm a geography teacher and half my kids don't even know where Canada is on a map (joke but a few kids actually needed me to tell them). For all any average person who doesn't pay attention to international hockey or even a casual NHL fan, they couldn't tell you how good Iceland is or isn't at hockey. They just would assume that due to the fact that they appear to be Nordic in the movie they must be a good hockey playing nation like other Nordic countries, Sweden, Finland, etc.

The other thing is how did Iceland get to be so skilled? They weren't just big and physical they were very skilled players. My guess is that (if you want to get into it) that they were possibly copying the old Soviet methods of taking kids at an early age and teaching them a sport from the age of 8 until they were ready for the Olympic team. It's possible the Icelandic government decided to focus on hockey and taking the biggest, strongest kids at an early age and having them play hockey. The Junior Goodwill Games was their real first chance to show everyone what they'd been up to as far as getting their players properly trained. Throw in the fact they have a guy who apparently a convicted felon (they mention he'd been deported from the US), who's a very intense coach with a chip on his shoulder, they seem like world beaters.

I've always been bothered with the fact that only a couple of the Icelandic players had last names that you could consider Icelandic. Most last names end in the suffix of -son, and would in this movie since Iceland didn't have any girls on their team. If they had the suffix on their last name would have been -dottir. One of them has the last name Sanderson, a perfectly Icelandic name. Yet a few others like their leading scorer's last name is Stahl, their goaltender's last name I don't know and whoever wore #74 (ironically the number I wore when I played) looked like it only had 1 vowel in the whole thing and definitely wasn't Icelandic. However this might support a theory that if Iceland wasn't able to groom homegrown talent they just imported it for the purpose of this tournament. Or maybe they just did what Bombay did by picking his own players and let Stansson recruit whomever he could, and was able to come up with a way to get them Icelandic passports, or forge them somehow. That makes a little more sense.

[–] Artharas 12 years ago

Just to have it clear, "Sanderson" is most certainly not a perfectly Icelandic name. Gunnar is the only name that is Icelandic(and his surname isn't even icelandic *sigh*), the rest not so much(I did think I heard one being called Siggi which is icelandic, but it's not on imdb, so no idea).

I'm going with "to not piss off bigger nations". I don't really understand why there wasn't more icelandic either. They used it I think in just 2 scenes. Seemed a bit weird to pay someone to do 2 voiceovers(since those were icelanders speaking, not a Dane) and skip the rest. Atleast they got the flag right.