The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers

I designed the first episode of Mighty Ducks: Game Changers before I had to leave for a prior commitment. Production designer Michael Norman Wong took over after I left. The script called for a down-on-its-heels, nearly forgotten ice rink. We were unable to find one that fit the bill, so we built our own in two sound stages in Vancouver. This is the tattered Ice Palace. It’s so out of date, please note the pre-1965 Canadian flag.

Here’s a shot of the early days of the rink build-out. On the right, our “concrete” seating is just going in, and on the left, you can see the removal of the wall that separated the two sound stages.

We contracted with a company that could build and maintain a “portable” ice rink using massive chiller machines and miles of glycol lines to make the ice. To cover the bare studio walls and add another sad, tattered, layer we made hundreds of canvas “pillows” and applied them to the upper walls of the studio. They were really just opportunities to add dust, soot, and age to the decrepit old rink.

We conceived the nearly forgotten and defunct Ice Palace rink as a relic of the late 1960s, having had little if any updates since then. As the Mighty Ducks story originated and continues in Minnesota, we made a mid-century mural of the virtues of winter sports in America’s Winter Wonderland, Minnesota.

We liked the “woodiness” of older rinks from Minnesota and Canada we found in our research. So we took loads of spruce planks, burned them, power-washed them, and then stained them to get a rich wood tone that spoke of the north. We also painted and aged the actual Zambonie that we used to condition the ice for shooting so that it looked as on the brink of collapse as the rest of the place.

Here you can see the warm richness of the burned spruce planks in contrast with the post-war green we chose for the steel superstructure. Based on the narrative of the original Mighty Ducks movies, we also chose a Bavarian sort on 60s modern, thus the German-style snack bar sign.

In this shot of the Ice Palace rink, you can see our dozens of custom-made industrial light scoops, but more importantly, you can see the “daylight” coming in from the right of the frame. The ice rink and stands took up the entirety of stage #1, so we decided to tear out the wall between our two stages. This allowed us not only to accommodate the lobby, snack bar, and Gordon Bombay’s office but also gave us the opportunity to blast “daylight” in from upper windows punched through the wall from stage #2.

This penetration between the two stages allowed us to build this lobby of an ice rink that time has forgotten.

A shot in the lobby area of the once hip but now decrepit Ice Palace.

The snack bar in the lobby of the Ice Palace with its 60s modern Bavarian theme.

While 50 years ago this was a cool, going-concern, the snack bar at the Ice Palace is outdated and dreading a Health Department inspection.

The grotty kitchen in the sack bar of the Ice Palace.

Gordon Bombay’s (Emilio Estevez) office in the Ice Palace. We penetrated the walls between the two sound stages here as well so the rink was visible from his desk. The office serves the character well, part office, part storage closet, part bedroom, and even kitchen when necessary.

Another view of Gordon Bombay’s (Emilio Estevez) office.

Another view of Gordon Bombay’s (Emilio Estevez) office.