Before Super Bowl, two Mighty Ducks super fans rollerblade around Minneapolis.
By
MICHAEL KOENIGS and MICHAEL HUBERMAN
February 4, 2018, 3:49 PM ET
• 3 min read
— -- The last time Minnesota hosted the Super Bowl was in 1992, the same year Disney's "The Mighty Ducks" premiered in theaters.
Now, 26 years later, the North Star State is hosting Super Bowl LII with the Philadelphia Eagles squaring off against the New England Patriots this evening.
A favorite of many kids who grew up in the 1990s, parts of "The Mighty Ducks" trilogy were filmed in the Minneapolis area. Using rollerblades from Skatesville of Burnsville, Minnesota, as our primary mode of transportation, ABC News explored some of the activities going on in the city with a wink and a nod to the movies that told audiences, "ducks fly together."
Before we started our journey we had to lace up our rollerblades, and did so in front of the site of Super Bowl LII, U.S. Bank Stadium. Nicknamed "The Ship," U.S. Bank Stadium opened in 2016 and cost more than $1 billion to make. In fitting with the forecast for Super Bowl weekend, the stadium was designed specifically to withstand heavy snow.
At the Mall of America, the United States' largest mall, we recreated scenes from the opening montage of "Mighty Ducks 2," rollerblading past rides in the amusement park. The Mall of America, which hosted many events during Super Bowl week, is the size of 78 football fields --- 9.5 million square feet. Some of the top attractions include the seven-acre indoor theme park, more than 500 stories and the Sea Life Minnesota Aquarium.
With the frigid temperatures outside, ABC News also set out to try some of the Twin Cities' hottest chicken wings. We tried wing flavors ranging from "nuclear" to "ghost," and somehow lived to tell the tale. We also applied a beloved Minnesota sauce known as Bollito's to the wings for additional flavor. Certainly not the type of diet Mighty Ducks Coach Gordon Bombay would approve of. However, Coach Bombay would be thrilled that we were able to coax customers at Runyon's in downtown Minneapolis to join in a "quack, quack, quack" chant like their beloved Mighty Ducks.