With Emilio Estevez stepping away from The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, the team is in need of a new coach. It’s been announced that Josh Duhamel will be stepping in for Estevez and starring alongside Lauren Graham in the second season of The Mighty Ducks series on Disney+.
Josh Duhamel will play Gavin Cole in The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, a former NHL player-turned-coach. Described as “inspirational, charming, and hardore,” Cole runs the super-intense summer hockey institute where the Mighty Ducks land for the second season and is a big believer on the hockey metaphor that applies to life.
It was announced late last year that Emilio Estevez would no longer by playing Gordon Bombay in The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers. After allegations that he was anti-vaccine, Estevez said that his exit was the result of “nothing more than a good old fashioned contract dispute” as well as “a myriad of creative differences.” He also stated that he’s been suffering from long-haul COVID after contracting the virus in early 2020.
The first season of The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers was set in present-day Minnesota and found the Mighty Ducks having evolved from scrappy underdogs to an ultra-competitive, powerhouse youth hockey team. After 12-year-old Evan Morrow (Brady Noon) is unceremoniously cut from the Ducks, he and his mom, Alex (Lauren 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 (Emilio Estevez), they rediscover the joys of playing just for love of the game. The first season saw several members from the cast of the original Mighty Ducks movies return and it’s expected that the new season will feature a few more. Josh Duhamel will next be seen starring alongside Jennifer Lopez in Shotgun Wedding on June 29, 2022.