Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

——-Time for a walk down nostalgia lane. I’d seen The Mighty Ducks about a thousand times as a kid but I’d never seen the sequels as far as I can remember so I thought I’d take a refresher course with the first film. You know? Seeing it the 1001st time is just as entertaining as the 999th.

——-I hate most sports. The few sports I do like, most other people hate and visa versa, mongoose fights for instance. I do however love sports movies all-encompassingly. If the values portrayed in sports movies were actually present in real life sports, I might actually be interested in throwing a ball at someone’s head. That’s a lie. I love dodgeball purely because it’s malicious. Mongeese on the other hand have a well defined moral code and a clear sense of honor when tearing a cobra’s face off.

———I’m not making an argument against sports video games by the way, which as far as huge wastes of time go, are among the more enjoyable TO ME. My nephew, who is only four years younger than I, was hugely into sports so to humor the little guy I would engage in various sports video games. It was a compromise but I actually began to enjoy games like NBA Jam, Ken Griffey Jr. Sr. Esquire Baseball, Michael Jordan Chaos in the Windy City and Shaq Fu.

——I also began to enjoy ice hockey. In fact hockey was the first sport I actually began to enjoy in real life. I might have even wanted to play it sometime but no one could satisfactorily explain to me what “off sides” was and those who actually knew would simply laugh at me for even asking, having themselves been born with the rules of all sports branded onto their foreheads in reverse so they could read it every day in the mirror while they brushed their tooth. I later found out that no one knows what “off sides” means and those who have any kind of answer are just making crap up for the sole purpose of being condescending.

——My questions about Hockey ranged from “If the goalie gets to wear wider equipment than everyone, why don’t they just make it so wide no one can see the goal?” to “Wouldn’t it be more advantageous to keep your equipment on when reciprocating fisticuffs, especially if the other guy has already discarded them?” And “why hasn’t anyone been stabbed with a skate?”

——-The Mighty Ducks spawned another question. Specifically, “Are there really evil coaches out there?” I mean I’m sure there’s bad ones. I’m sure there’s a coach who is a jerk or obsessed with winning. I’d not be surprised if there were coaches who encouraged cheating. But the rival coach in Mighty Ducks was down right evil! Is that a thing? Are there people who want to rule the world and the venue they choose through which to execute their wicked vie for power is the kids junior hockey league? I’m not sure I follow that logic.

——-In one scene the evil coach told his team to drop a kid like a bad habit. When the dropped kid hit his head and turned his neck a funny way and then lay on the ice unconscious, the perpetrators were questioned indignantly “What are you guys doing!?!” To which the evil team members replied “Our Job.” Really! What? Is district 6 just full of evil children? The victim in this case had once been with their team and the only reason he had to switch teams is because the district lines were changed and Emilio brought it to the attention of the officials. All his friends were Hawks. The “evil” coach even advocated on the kids behalf so he could keep playing with the Hawks but Emilio shut that noise down real fast. The only thing that got the kid any respect with the ducks after he was FORCED to switch teams was how douchebaggy his former teammates were! I don’t know who to root for in this! I agreed the kid should have been allowed to continue to be a Hawk with his friends but then the moment that action is thwarted he’s just dead to the evil coach AND his former teammates? That’s so much worse than evil. It’s diabolical! The victims dad seemed pretty chummy with the coach too. I’m sure he was at the game where this event took place. What do you say to that?

——“Sorry about your boy but he was too great a security risk. He knew all our plays and techniques so we had to kill him. All hail the evil hockey demons!”

——-I don’t know. Maybe kid’s dad was evil too. Maybe it was his idea.

——Maybe he was like, “If my kid can’t be a Hawk he won’t play hockey… break his neck!”

——-I don’t care. It was still a fun movie. And you know what else? I hear it’s a better movie for Queen music than Bohemian Rhapsody. You can take that to the bank.