Counterfeiting Quack-Down : Retailing: Disney is targeting O.C. as it fights peddlers of fake Mighty Ducks hockey merchandise.

Even before the first puck has been shot, hockey’s Mighty Ducks said Monday that they are being plagued by counterfeiters who could potentially siphon millions of dollars from the team’s merchandise sales.

Mighty Ducks officials, working in conjunction with the National Hockey League’s merchandising arm, are trying to identify and crack down on counterfeiters. Some ersatz T-shirts are reportedly being peddled door to door in Orange County.

“There are a lot of black-market products out there, unlicensed by the Ducks,” said Tony Tavares, president of Disney Sports Enterprises, which owns the team. “Unfortunately, with a lot of this knock-off stuff in the marketplace, you are getting real low-grade stuff. People are getting ripped off.”

Most of the illegal trade so far has been in T-shirts, which can be inexpensively embossed on silk-screen equipment. Quality is inferior, Disney officials say, because the counterfeiters often use the lowest-grade materials possible. “You wash it once and it falls apart,” Tavares said.

Counterfeit merchandise is a continuing problem in the $4-billion professional sports marketing business. What is surprising in Disney’s case is the speed with which the bogus clothing has hit the streets.

The legitimate goods, sold primarily through many of the 227 Disney Stores worldwide, have been in stock for only two months, and the team’s debut is still months away. Even so, Mighty Ducks officials say, they are on the way to a sales record. The Mighty Ducks and their distinctive duck hockey-mask logo have accounted for about 60% of all NHL merchandise sold through July this year, leaving the other 25 teams to split the remainder, said merchandising chief Shelley Gartner. The Canadian maker of NHL jerseys already has ordered more than 400,000 Mighty Duck jerseys.

Sales like that attract counterfeiters--and attract them quickly. NHL Enterprises, the league’s merchandising division, recognizes early signs that counterfeiters are targeting the Mighty Ducks, and “we consider this a very high priority,” said General Counsel Richard Zahnd.

At present, Disney and the NHL are investigating companies in the Pacific Northwest and Orange County as possible unlicensed distributors. They would not be more specific, saying that they do not want to tip off the perpetrators.

“We work with attorneys around the country who have private investigators and are on the lookout for illegal merchandise,” said Chuck Champlin, spokesman for Disney’s consumer products division. The company in the past has pursued both civil and criminal actions against counterfeiters. Champlin estimated that Disney’s annual loss to counterfeiters runs into the millions.

Teams with popular merchandise lines have grown accustomed to fighting fakes.

The Los Angeles Raiders, for instance, have had to be especially vigilant against counterfeiting because their merchandise line has ranked first or second in sales in the National Football League for a decade, said team spokesman Gil Hernandez.

On game days, he said, a special unit fans out around the Coliseum to seek out vendors selling unauthorized T-shirts and other souvenirs. The team is armed with a court order that allows it to impound such merchandise. Usually, the vendors never show up to reclaim it.

That way, he said, the team has been able to keep counterfeiting under control. Still, Hernandez said, “it’s annoying.”