This is one of those things that pops up in my brain every now and again. Coming from Australia, I understand that nobody expects us to be a Winter Olympics powerhouse. When you think about Australia, you might think about the desert, or the surf, or deadly animals. Nobody thinks about the snow. In fact, my ski bunny friends tell me that it’s cheaper and better to fly to New Zealand for skiing than it is to try and ski during our blink-and-you’ll-miss-it ski season.
The same applies to Trinidad and Tobago, which is listed to have a maritime tropical climate on Wikipedia. In the ice hockey by country page, Trinidad and Tobago is listed. They have one person born in the country who played for Canada, but it also says:
Due to lack of ice rinks and ice hockey activities in the country however, a fictional team from Trinidad and Tobago was featured in the movie, D2: The Mighty Ducks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_hockey_by_country
So they made up a team for the movie! Why?!
As far as my internet detective skills can tell, there’s no official reason for why Trinidad and Tobago was there. Trinidad and Tobago is listed as one of the participating countries for the now defunct Goodwill games, so it’s not completely impossible that they would be at the junior goodwill games (something that doesn’t actually exist).
The most plausible theory I could find on the internet is that the movie, which came out in 1994, was trying to cash in on Carribean fever created by Cool Runnings, which came out in 1993. Source: The Quack Attack podcast.
In the USA v Trinidad and Tobago match, USA is crushing them 6-0, and then Trinidad and Tobago scores the least convincing goal in the entire movie, leading to a couple of shots of the team celebrating with a very Carribean vibe.
So without being able to talk to the writers for the movie, that’s probably the best answer I’m going to get.
Also, did anyone read the newspaper article in the movie announcing Team USA’s win over Trinidad and Tobago before putting it in the movie?
My guess is that they took some stock text, as the second column repeats from the third paragraph of the first column, which seems to loop again.
Well, that’s it for the mystery. During my research, I did come across a question that never occurred to me while watching: why was Iceland the big fearful team in the movie? Unless the movie was completely full of lies, here’s a lesson in geography from the Iceland trainer, Maria:
It’s no Trinidad and Tobago, as it gets quite cold in Iceland in the Winter.
(Winter) The Icelandic winter is relatively mild for its latitude, owing to maritime influence and proximity to the warm currents of the North Atlantic Gyre. The southerly lowlands of the island average around 0 °C (32 °F) in winter, while the north averages around −10 °C (14 °F).
(Summer) The average July temperature in the southern part of the island is 10–13 °C (50–55 °F). Warm summer days can reach 20–25 °C (68–77 °F).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Iceland
She’s not wrong about Greenland, either.
Climatically, Greenland is divided into two very separate regions: the coastal region, much of which is ice free, and the inland ice sheet. The Greenland Ice Sheet covers about 80% of Greenland.
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Coastal regions on the northern half of Greenland experience winter temperatures similar to or slightly warmer than the Canadian Archipelago, with average January temperatures of −30 to −25 °C (−22 to −13 °F).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_Arctic#Greenland
However, Iceland is not particularly famous for its ice hockey team, with ice hockey only recently becoming more popular.
Ice hockey is gaining popularity in Iceland, with 1 in 512 of the population an ice hockey player.[12] They have a larger ‘hockey density’ than Slovakia (1 in 630 people are players). The Iceland national ice hockey team has risen to 38th in the IIHF rankings, and has recently seen a fourth team added to their domestic league.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_in_Iceland#Other_sports
Let’s look further. Here is the list of teams who made it to the playoffs of the Junior Goodwill Games in the movie.
Most of the countries in the list make sense at first glance. Based on the top 10 ranked countries in the International Ice Hockey Federation, most of the countries in the list also feature in the top 10: Germany, USA, Russia, Canada, France, and Sweden.
Why wouldn’t you pick Russia or Canada to be the big scary team?
The answer is in this article which talks about the writer, Steve Brill. The article is pretty funny, but here’s the relevant part to answer the question, “Why Iceland?”
In “D2,” the Ducks were going to represent Team USA at the fictional Junior Goodwill Games — and they needed an international rival.
The obvious choice was Russia.
“Although Russia had just gone through Glasnost, and it was a thawing in relationship,” Steve says.
“Things may have changed politically a little since then, but they weren’t a villain, and we certainly didn’t want to encourage anybody looking at them as a villain,” Jordan says.
So Russia was out.
“So I scanned the globe in my head, and my first thought would be, of course, the villains would be the Germans,” Steve says with a laugh. “Because the Germans are just the go-to, from ‘Die Hard’ to everywhere.
“But after further review and careful consideration and I can’t remember what else — except maybe because it was so obvious and I didn’t want to pick on the Germans — I put them aside,” Steve says. “And then I thought, well, what if we could create another entity that people don’t know that much about? And, therefore, I could have the latitude to create them any way I wanted.”
So Steve and Jordan were on the hunt for a cold-weather country that people wouldn’t know much about.
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Jordan had become friends with a talented young actress on the show. Her name was Maria Ellingsen — and she was from Iceland.
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“I remember probably jumping up and down, like, ‘Iceland! Of course! They’re from Iceland, get it? Ice-Land!’ ” Steve recalls.
Except there were some issues: Steve didn’t know much about Iceland. He’d never been.
“Nope. This was back in the 90s. I don’t think they had airplanes there. I don’t think there was a way to get there,” Steve says with a laugh.
“So I’m sure in your early research you figured out that Iceland was, in fact, not a hockey powerhouse,” I say. “Did you worry that people might call you out on that?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s the other thing — that’s so funny,” Steve says. “I just had to cast that annoying fact aside.”
https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2018/04/20/mighty-ducks-d2-iceland
As for why Canada wasn’t picked, my guess is that they didn’t want to alienate potential fans.
