D3: The Mighty Ducks
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D3: The Mighty Ducks is the third and final film in The Mighty Ducks trilogy and the second theatrical sequel to The Mighty Ducks, and first to D2: The Mighty Ducks. produced by Avnet-Kerner Productions and Walt Disney Pictures, distributed by Buena Vista Distribution, and originally released to movie theatres on October 4, 1996.
With this installment, the series shifts focus from Bombay to his protége, Charlie Conway (Joshua Jackson). Charlie and his teammates are awarded scholarships to Eden Hall Academy, a prestigious Minnesota prep school that Bombay attended. Their arrival is met with hostility from the varsity team, which mainly consists of players from rich families whose younger siblings were not accepted to the academy to make room for the Ducks. The team has an icy relationship with Bombay's hand-picked successor, Ted Orion (Jeffrey Nordling), who does not share Bombay's lighthearted approach to coaching. Orion makes several changes to the team, including starting Julie Gaffney in goal over Greg Goldberg based on Gaffney's superior play in tryouts, directing the team to play a defensive-minded system, banning the team's pregame "quack" chant, and refusing to designate Charlie team captain.
After becoming fed up with Orion, whom he considers a washed-up former professional player, Charlie leaves the team. He later rejoins, however, after Bombay reveals that Orion was once a player for the Minnesota North Stars, but he stayed in Minnesota when the North Stars moved to Dallas in order to take care of his paraplegic daughter. Bombay convinces Charlie to rejoin the team, and he and Orion quickly bond. With Bombay's help, they stop an attempt led by the varsity team captain's father to remove the Ducks from Eden Hall, just in time for the JV-Varsity Showdown. Thanks in large part to the work of Charlie and the arrival of Fulton's "Bash Brother" Dean Portman, who had not come to Eden Hall with the rest of the Ducks, the Ducks win on a shorthanded goal in the final seconds of the game from unlikely scorer Goldberg, who had converted from goalie to defenseman. Following the victory, the nickname of the Eden Hall athletic teams is changed from Warriors to Mighty Ducks, the result of a petition that was started by Charlie's new girlfriend and helped by Bombay's influence.
