Coach Jack Reilly is the main antagonist of the 1992 hockey film, The Mighty Ducks. He's the head coach of the Hawks. When Gordon Bombay was a child, he played for the Hawks, whereupon he was coached by Reilly.
Contents
- 1 Biography
- 1.1 Early Years
- 1.2 The Mighty Ducks
- 2 Legacy
- 3 Trivia
Biography[]
Early Years[]
Coach Jack Reilly was the coach of the Minnesota Pee-Wee Hockey team the Hawks which was a team that Gordon Bombay was a member of in 1973. In the State-Championships against an unknown team, it was the last part of a game with a shootout. Gordon was up to take a penalty shot for the winning goal. Coach Reilly told Gordon that it was up to him to make the shot, and if he missed it, he would let him and the entire team down. He also reminded him that it isn't worth winning if they can't win big.
Bombay did his best to make the shot, but the puck hit the goal post and flew outside the goal, causing the other team to win. This left little Bombay sad and Reilly disappointed and bitter over the defeat.
The Mighty Ducks[]
Years passed and Gordon became a full-grown man. Even so, Coach Reilly remained active in the game. At a pee-wee hockey game, he met up with his old student again, and was still bitter about the defeat in 1973. This was evidenced by a series of banners in the rink, all hailing how the Hawks won that year, save for one different colored banner which hailed the team's second place finish in 1973. Reilly remarked to Bombay "I wish they would take that one down". During the game with District 5 the Hawks beat the D5 team 17-0. Before he left the rink he told Bombay that it was a good game...for him.
Reilly was present when Gordon appeared with a pee-wee hockey representative stating that the star player for the Hawks, Adam Banks was playing for the wrong team of the league and should be transferred to the Mighty Ducks. Reilly saw this as a low-handed act by Bombay and scolded Bombay, saying that he could've been "one of the greats" due to his teaching, but now was a "never was".
Adam Banks's father and Coach Reilly would then communicate with the pee-wee hockey administration cutting a deal with them that Banks would stay on the Hawks until the season is over, and that when the season was over they would re-draft the line correctly. The condition was that Gordon withdraw his protest. Gordon refused of course, stating that his protest was the correct thing to to, then he let Reilly know that he would see him in the playoffs.
In the championship game of the Ducks vs the Hawks, Reilly would try everything to win since Banks was now on the Ducks. He had two of his players take out Adam Banks so that he could not help the Ducks win. This was noticed by Gordon, who then told Reilly that he now regretted “spen[ding] all those years thinking about what [Reilly] said” and vowed to defeat him. Due to the Hawks tripping Charlie Conway, the Ducks had a penalty shot, which Bombay said that Charlie should take to finish what he started. Charlie did the triple-deke maneuver that Gordon taught him and won the championship for the Ducks much to Coach Reilly's devastation.
Legacy[]
It is unknown what happened to Jack Reilly after the first film. During the game he did state that if the Hawks lost the game, no one would make the team next year, meaning that he would fire the roster. It is likely that he retired from coaching, as the Hawks appear in The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers wearing orange instead of black. It is also likely that he passed away before the events of the show.
Reilly could arguably be considered the main antagonist of the first film and franchise, since he set the events in motion for Gordon and the Mighty Ducks by the Hawks defeat in 1973.
Trivia[]
- Coach Jack Reilly is similar to John Kreese from the Karate Kid (1984) in the following:
- Both are corrupt coaches who want to win.
- Both have forced their athletes/students to cheat to win.
- Both of them wear black.
- Since Lane Smith passed away in 2005, it is highly likely that Coach Reilly is deceased by the time of Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, although a possibility exists for his backstory.
