The Hockey Champ (1939) User Reviews

Disney on ice

[CuriosityKilledShawn · 8/10 · 26 July 2005]

I'm always partial to the Disney cartoons set in winter with the quaint Victorian looks to the countryside and enchanting atmosphere (such as 1935s 'On Ice'). It looks brilliant here in this cartoon and I'm pleased to say it's one of the more inventive and clever Donald Duck shorts.

This time round the irritable duck is skating around on a frozen lake when his nephews appear for a game of hockey. He shows off to them his hockey trophy (kept in his jacket) and brags about how he's the best hockey player in the world. As you can guess already, he gets too big for his boots (err...webbed feet) and Huey, Duey and Louie play no end of tricks on him.

If only he would keep his big mouth shut once in a while huh?

Donald and Disney on ice, oh my!

[TheLittleSongbird · 8/10 · 16 March 2010]

Not that it is a bad thing of course! My concluding thoughts after seeing The Hockey Champ.. I liked it! It is rather routine and predictable in terms of story and the pacing isn't always secure, but what does compensate is the lovely atmosphere the animation gives, a very Christmassy and nostalgic atmosphere. The music is also absolutely gorgeous, lyrical, smooth and whimsical. There are some good gags, if nothing particularly groundbreaking. Donald is excellent as usual, and his three nephews are as dastardly as ever. Clarence Nash once again does a stellar job with the voicing.

Overall, pleasant but not a classic! 8/10 Bethany Cox

The Champion of Duck Swamp

[Clintborari · 7/10 · 22 January 2021]

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.

Pretty typical of the Donald vs. Nephews films.

[planktonrules · 4 September 2019]

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 Duck short

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 3 September 2019]

Donald Duck is showing off on the ice. The kids are playing hockey and Donald brings out his Hockey Champion of Duck Swamp trophy. He challenges his nephews in a three on one game. He's unstoppable until the boys fight back with some unconventional tactics. It's a little odd when Donald is great at anything. So this starts off a little oddly. His arrogance is very much expected and that's how this plays out. That's the fun of this short. Donald gets his comeuppance once again.

Donald On Ice

[boblipton · 7/10 · 6 September 2019]

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.

For the love of hockey and the 1960's film shorts that used to open the feature film

[Ed-Shullivan · 10/10 · 4 September 2019]

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.

He shoots, he scores!

[Squonk · 9/10 · 27 January 1999]

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.

Duck On Ice

[Ron Oliver · 10/10 · 24 December 2002]

A Walt Disney DONALD DUCK Cartoon.

Donald, THE HOCKEY CHAMP of Duck Swamp, gets himself into trouble when he brags of his prowess on the ice to his Nephews.

This enjoyable little film boasts fine animation & a funny storyline. Early on, Donald does an impression of Norwegian skating queen Sonja Henie, a big movie star at the time, even replicating her trademark tiptoe ice dancing. Clarence "Ducky" Nash supplies the unique voices of Donald & the Nephews.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

Fast, but not really fun

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 28 December 2017]

"The Hockey Champ" is an American 7-minute cartoon from 1939, so this one is from the year WWII began and almost 80 years old, maybe even older depending on when you read this review. If the names King and Nash don't make it obvious to you already that here we have another Disney cartoon, then the moment you see Donald really should. The first minute is about his figure skating talent, but the moment the nephews enter the picture, it quickly all becomes about hockey and for European audiences I maybe should say "ice hockey". The most baffling thing is how talented the usually clumsy and incompetent Donald really is on the ice here. Who'd have guessed. The rest is basically about the three boys annoying and pranking their uncle, but there is never really any fun or wit in terms of the comedy to be found in here. It may be as fast as you think from the title, but yeah well I did not find it entertaining at all. The animation is of course as good (maybe even better) as you'd expect from that era of cartoon filmmaking and that makes it the short film's best aspect. Shame. I normally love the Donald/nephews cartoons a lot more than this one. Even during the days of Christmas/winter, it is only a mediocre watch, perhaps because the nephews are bullies here really. Donald may be a showoff, but that justifies none of their actions. I cannot even recommend it to the big Donald Duck fans (they've seen it already anyway I suppose), as I am one of this group too and I didn't like it. My suggestion is to skip this one. Not recommended.

"Who is this Sonja Heine?" asks Don Duck to begin . . .

[pixrox1 · 8/10 · 3 February 2022]

. . . THE HOCKEY CHAMP. Ms. Heine, of course, was and is the ONLY woman ice skater to win the Olympic singles gold medal three times, as well as the sole female to win the World singles crown TEN times in a row! More importantly, Sonja transformed her competition from a slow parade of lumbering Clydesdale types to the svelte pageantry of lithe show horses for all the years to come, introducing the elements of choreography as well as white skates and short skirts. Prior to Sonja, lady figure skaters were decked out to resemble Russian Army snipers. However, by the time THE HOCKEY CHAMP was released, Sonja had retired from competition and reigned well above Katharine Hepburn as a Hollywood Box Office Star. As such, she made far more money than Don Duck.

For Very Little Kids Only

[ccthemovieman-1 · 3/10 · 4 January 2007]

Donald Duck is out by himself, skating on his pond having a good time when his three little kids come racing out onto the surface, ready to play hockey. Donald is arrogant and tells the kids they know nothing about the game, they he will have to show them. He takes them on: one and against three, and kills them. He hams it up so bad it's embarrassing - the ultimate showoff. He rubs it in afterward, too. The kids are not happy. Donald then offers to play the kids again, this time blindfolded.

That turns out to be a mistake as they beat him around like a hockey puck.

This animated short is really for little kids, and no one else. The humor might make them laugh a lot but I doubt older kids and adults wound find much funny. I know I didn't.

Not one of the better Donald/Nephews cartoons.

[OllieSuave-007 · 5/10 · 13 December 2015]

In this Disney cartoon, Donald takes his nephews to a game of hockey, but Donald says that they know nothing about the sport, touting his own champion self. Donald wins the first round with his nephews and then gets a little cocky and blindfolds himself while taking his nephews on a second game. However, the kids get a little to aggravated and hits Donald around like the hockey puck itself.

I first saw this animated short as part of Disney home video collection called "Kids is Kids," which my mom used to rent for me when I was a little kid. Even has a kid, I didn't like this one much as I thought the characters didn't really get a long and were too mean-spirited toward each other. While, the humor might some little kids laugh a lot older kids or adults probably fine this one not-so-entertaining.

Grade D