Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
Logo of The Spectrum
Thursday, March 28, 2024
The independent student publication of The University at Buffalo, since 1950

Ducks fly together

You can call me a nerd, simple-minded or slightly immature, but there is one film that completely encompasses everything that the upcoming school year is going to be about.

D2: The Mighty Ducks.

Ever since 1994, I have treated my school experience as a macrocosm of the Mighty Ducks movies. In my mind, every first day of school is basically the scene where Charlie reunites with the old Ducks team to play for Team U.S.A.

The Mighty Ducks were the perfect team. They were a group of kids with unique talents coming together and becoming greater than the sum of their parts. Think opposite of the 2009 Buffalo Bills.

Who honestly wasn't a fan of the real Mighty Ducks after those movies were released? Any Sabres fan under the age of 24 who says they didn't cheer for the Ducks for at least a couple of years is either lying or in denial. I'll take Goldberg over Ryan Miller any day.

The more that I reflect on D2, the more I realize all of the life lessons that I've learned from that movie. Iceland isn't icy, Greenland isn't green, and flipping a hockey puck onto its edge and shooting it will probably cause a rift in the space-time continuum.

And when it comes to women, they will always have the ultimate power to split up even the most tightly knit group of guys. Eating ice cream with the enemy coach? Prepare to feel the wrath of a team of sexually frustrated pubescent boys.

But the largest lesson to come out of the movie doesn't deal with hot foreign women; it deals with the quack attack. Mighty Duck enthusiasts may remember receiving nerd chills from watching "The Flying V" formation in the first film, but D2 proves that even the mightiest of ducks can fail if they continue to rely on old tricks.

The Mighty Ducks were the perfect team, but perfection didn't come without its own trials and tribulations.

This is where the incoming students of the University at Buffalo come into play. You will be our knuckle-puck. There is no way we are beating Iceland unless we utilize your skills. I want to be singing "We Are the Champions" around a campfire at the end of this semester and I know the only way that's going to happen is if we get you into our game plan.

The convoluted point that I'm trying to make is that a team (or university) needs to be constantly evolving. Achievements of the past don't really count for anything if Iceland is kicking our butt all of the time. In short, what worked last year isn't necessarily going to work this year.

A new semester is approaching us. "Ducks" will be migrating back to campus shortly and new challenges will have to be checked head-on at the blue line. The only way that this real-life movie has a happy ending is if we keep our flock moving forward.

It won't always be a walk in the park, but where is the fun in having things come easily? Beating Team Iceland is going to feel a whole lot better than beating Team Jamaica.

When the challenges inevitably start lining up for students, new and old alike, it's important to realize that you're not in this alone. We're all in this together because ducks always fly together.

E-mail: sneilans@buffalo.edu


Comments


Popular









Powered by SNworks Solutions by The State News
All Content © 2024 The Spectrum