In the mid-90s, I was being looked after by my aunt on a day off school. She hired some children’s movies for me to watch. One of those movies was the hit live-action movie “The Mighty Ducks”.
I specifically remember this day because I was by myself. I’m not sure why. My cousins were at school, and my brother was somewhere else.

However, on this day in 1994, the rental video was not titled this. I recall going through the pile of new release hired movies and instantly dismissing this movie based on the title.
Perhaps it’s because I’m not a competitive person. Maybe it was because I was not a sporty kid. The title Champions had no appeal to me.
This always confused me growing up. Sometimes friends would argue the name was The Mighty Ducks. They swore it was by this name.
I also worked for a major DVD retailer in the early 2000s. I saw the title it was under, and it was always Champions. All 2000s DVD releases in Australia were titled “Champions” in Australia.
Even now, on our Facebook page, people insist it was never called Champions. They swear it was the The Mighty Ducks when they hired the movie or saw it at the cinema. I investigated. It turns out both names are correct in Australia. However, I did find that all home releases up until 2015 were always titled ‘Champions’ in Australia. All cinema releases were under the title Champions in Australia too.

Champions was released on July 1st, 1993, in Australia. It was renamed for our market for its original cinema release in every State, I checked listing for every State.

(It was renamed with the same name for many international markets, especially in Europe and Asia including the UK). It was called Champions in all states as the above the listings posted above.

Here is a Trailer shown during a 1993 episode of Neighbours in Adelaide, with Queen’s song in it at the 10 minute mark, under the name Champions. (Click the link view on Archive.org and go to the 10 minute mark)

https://archive.org/details/neighbours-ads-10-01-07-93

All Australian Home Video (VHS and DVD) versions up until 2015ish were called Champions for the Australian market. Rental store versions were called Champions too. (As Disney would need to pay for it to be rated again eg PG, to be rented under a different name back then). It was officially classified G in Australia under the name Champions.

All rental versions in Australia were titled Champions too.

However, this is where it gets confusing for Aussies and does not help the reason why both names are used in Australia.

All Australian TV showings went by the international name, The Mighty Ducks.

The Mighty Ducks premiered on Seven and its affiliates during the week of July 9th, 1995. It was the second highest-rated show that week! (And the only non news show in the top 5)

Future TV showings went by the name The Mighty Ducks, including free-to-air and pay TV such as Foxtel.

To confuse people even more, back in 1995 it was common to record movies from TV and collect them, further adding to the confusion of the name, or the mandella effect that what it was always called that at video rental stores or cinemas.

To confuse things even more again and this may add to the Mandela effect, the second movie was sometimes called The Mighty Ducks in Australia, omitting the D2 part of the title.

So both names are correct in Australia. Some people must have misremembered the original name. This could be based on future TV showings, or they might have had a pirate or imported US version.

Maybe they grew up with a VHS recorded off TV. Perhaps they also watched on Foxtel every time it was shown.

The movie’s title in Australia was originally Champions. All VHS copies were called this. All cinemas called it this. All DVD copies from the 2000s in Australia were also called this.