The Mighty Ducks have been portrayed as having skated straight out of Fantasyland, a Disney movie come to life under that company's ownership. But the reality is, they were first Bruce McNall's fantasy, a vehicle for easing his dire financial problems.
If it weren't for the former King owner, there probably wouldn't be an NHL team called the Ducks, nor Stanley Cup finals at the Arrowhead Pond this weekend, nor, perhaps, pro hockey franchises stretched across the Sun Belt.
And although that is no consolation to investors who lost millions to him, or those who pleaded guilty to crimes committed under his direction, it did earn him a phone call from Disney chairman Michael Eisner, inviting him to Anaheim to see the Ducks play in the finals.
To Eisner, owning a hockey team called the Ducks was a logical extension of his entertainment empire. To McNall, sinking fast toward the bottom of a financial quagmire, the idea was a temporary $25-million lifeline from creditors he owed about 10 times that amount.
By letting an NHL expansion team share his territory, that's how much McNall stood to gain from any deal.
"I figured any money I could get would stem the bloodletting," said McNall, now a movie executive with Fine Arts Entertainment after serving four years in prison for bank fraud. "And I thought, if we could get Disney in our league, what a coup that would be. What a huge coup."
Former King superstar Wayne Gretzky, who has remained close to McNall, credits him for looking out for hockey's best interests above all. "Bruce really wanted to grow the sport," Gretzky said. "It was kind of gutsy on Bruce's part. Just a few years earlier the Kings were drawing only 7,000-8,000 a game and some of their fans were coming from Orange County, which was only an hour's drive away. If the Ducks came into being, people might say, 'Why drive an hour when we can support our own team and still see NHL hockey?' Bruce, to his credit, saw what was best for the NHL."
Eisner declined to be interviewed for this story, but during their phone call, McNall said Eisner told him, "You thought of the idea of the Ducks. It was your concept. You were the father of the whole idea."
McNall dismisses that theory.
"I think I'm getting more credit than I deserve," he said. "A lot of things just came together."
But he smiles at the mention of the phone call. Actually, almost everything makes McNall smile these days.
