The Hockey Champ

A perfect 10 for 10

This short animation from the Walt Disney vaults is a must see for any hockey fan enthusiast. The color is fantastic, and the interaction with Donald Duck and his young and rambunctious three (3) nephews on ice skates is such a wonderful piece of cartoon nostalgia that I wished that the new Disney films that get released in the theaters with their half a billion dollar budgets would wow their audiences by showing this 1939 short 7 minute cartoon prior to their main feature film which is what I was used to seeing back in the 1960's.

Parents and children would flock back to the theaters and talk more about the preliminary cartoon short they just saw than the multi-million dollar CGI enhanced feature films that are cookie cutters of the previous years action/adventure films.

Donald Duck teaches his nephews ow to play hockey. Then they teach him that it's not about just skating and hitting the puck accurately in this typically fine cartoon from Disney.

One of the pleasures of watching cartoons these days, instead watching them when I was a kid, dinosaurs roamed the earth and TV screens were tiny -- a couple of years ago, I was in an electronics store, where a sales proudly pointed to a 9-foot screen and asked if I had ever seen a television that size. I replied that we had one when I was four; it was ten feet wide, with the usual 8-inch screen -- is watching beautiful, clean prints -- even in movie theaters, the prints were always at least a bit scratched and dirty -- on sizable screens that offer clarity comparable to movie theaters.

This cartoon is not only fun. It's beautiful.

This Donald Duck short is wonderfully animated and very entertaining. The story is simple, Donald challenges his nephews to a game of ice hockey leading to all sorts of winter hi-jinks. The winter setting inspires many creative sight gags, and the Disney gang uses them to the extreme. Donald's opening figure skating scene is a great piece of animation.

I noticed one review that complained that 'the characters didn't really get along and were mean-spirited toward each other'. Well, this is very true in "The Hockey Champ"...but also in MOST cartoons featuring Donald and his nephews! I can only assume they haven't seen that many of these Disney shorts.

When the short begins, Donald is skating around the lake--pretending he's the Olympic skating champion, Sonja Henie. Soon, the nephews arrive and Donald tries to show them how a champion hockey player plays the game. Mostly, however, what you see are the nephews tormenting Donald.

To me, this is an average Donald and nephews film...no better, no worse.

Donald is skating with elegance, and grace on a frozen lake until he sees his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie playing Ice Hockey. So he decides to challenge them to a three-on-one game after showing them his 'Duck Swamp Champion' trophy.

The animation and effects were great, especially for the year that this cartoon was released. Some funny moments will rouse young children and keep them entertained.

Like all short Disney cartoons, I find the scenery looked gorgeous and the story itself was enjoyable, but not truly memorable.

On a side note, you can't help but feel a little sorry for Donald, as he seems to always get slapped around like a hockey puck.

7/10.