All eyes have been on Paul Kariya this weekend as he makes some of his first public appearances in the hockey world since his retirement in 2010.
So, we thought we’d look back at one of our favourite moments in Kariya’s career. If you’ve followed our site for any amount of time, you’re probably aware that we’re big fans of the Mighty Ducks movie franchise. There are some great cameos in the movies including Wayne Gretzky’s appearance in D2, but the most notorious might be Kariya’s.
Kariya stepped into the booth for his role, providing some colour analysis in Mighty Ducks 3. It’s not a long cameo, but it apparently made a lasting impression on his teammates and many others.
Obviously, his delivery is a little dry, but Kariya says he just tried to do it like he would in real life. However after years of his teammates sending him the clip, he seems like he might add a little more emotion if he had another shot.
This is from the extensive oral history of the Mighty Ducks series done by Time Magazine in 2014:
“PAUL KARIYA (Five-time NHL all-star): That was after my first season playing with the Ducks in ’94-’95, and I don’t recall like who called me, but they just asked me if I wanted to make a cameo in Mighty Ducks 3. And I said, ‘Yeah, sure, no problem.’ They flew me out and it was shot at a prep school in Minnesota. It was a great experience. I always joke that it was my one and only time in a movie, so I obviously didn’t do a very good job. On the first take, I got my lines perfectly, and I was really proud of myself, and the director said, ‘You know, that was great, but do you think you could put a little more emotion or like a little more energy in those lines?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m playing myself. This is how I would do an interview.’ Any time it’s on TV, one of my teammates sends me my role and tells me how bad I did. I’ll just randomly like open up my phone, and there’s my scene being played. That’s how hockey teammates are.”
We saw some of the way teammates are this week as well, when Kariya and Selanne were busting each other’s chops while preparing for the weekend. Either way, we wouldn’t change a thing about Kariya’s cameo. It makes the scene memorable for us and it feels authentic to his personality.
Still, if that’s how he would offer analysis in real life, it makes sense why he hasn’t tried to launch a career in broadcasting after his hockey career ended.
