Josh Duhamel is joining the second season of Disney+’s “Might Ducks: Gamechangers,” filling the void left by the outgoing Emilio Estevez.
Duhamel will play Gavin Cole, a former NHL player-turned-coach. Described as inspirational, charming and hardcore, he’s big on the hockey metaphor that applies to life. He runs the super-intense summer hockey institute where The Mighty Ducks land in Season 2.
Estevez left the revival, where he reprised his role as Gordon Bombay, after the end of the first season. Estevez attributed the decision to creative differences after it was reported that he left over Disney’s vaccine mandate. Estevez, who said he struggled with a bout of Long COVID, strongly denied that he was anti-vaxx.
The series stars Brady Noon and Lauren Graham, Maxwell Simkins, Swayam Bhatia, Luke Islam, Kiefer O’Reilly, Taegen Burns, Bella Higginbotham and DJ Watts.
Steve Brill, the original creator, writer and executive producer of all three “Mighty Ducks” films from the ’90s, is co-creator and executive producer on the new series alongside showrunners Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa George Heller and Brad Petrigala of Brillstein Entertainment Partners are also executive producers on the new season.
Set in present day Minnesota, the Mighty Ducks have evolved from scrappy underdogs to an ultra-competitive, powerhouse youth hockey team. After 12-year-old Evan Morrow (Noon) is unceremoniously cut from the Ducks, he and his mom, Alex (Graham), set out to build their own team of misfits to challenge the cutthroat, win-at-all-costs culture of youth sports today. With the help of Gordon Bombay (Estevez), they rediscover the joys of playing just for the love of the game.
The second season will pick up from where the first season left off, with the Don’t Bothers claiming the Mighty Ducks name and returning the team to its scrappy, underdog roots.
Duhamel was most recently seen in Netflix’s “Jupiter’s Legacy.”