On the Record

By: Danny Jacobs

I would consider myself a casual hockey fan; I especially enjoy the playoffs and the power of the playoff beards.  My one personal fan rule is that, whenever possible, I root for Canadian teams. It’s their sport, and I think it’s silly the National Hockey League expanded into cities that only see snow when “It’s A Wonderful Life” is on television.

Cities like Phoenix, where the NHL finds itself today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court trying to seize ownership of the bankrupt Phoenix Coyotes. The league’s opponent is Jim Balsillie, a Canadian billionaire who founded Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry.

Balsillie is the only prospective buyer of the club, offering more than $240 million, and he wants to move the team to Hamilton, Ontario. But this is his third attempt at buying a franchise — the two previous attempts failed — and earlier this summer NHL owners voted 26-0 against Balsillie owning a franchise because he lacked the “good character and integrity required of a new owner,” as one owner put it.

The NHL has countered with a $140 million offer, essentially becoming the team’s caretaker until another owner can be found.

Not surprisingly, today’s hearing is front-page news in Canada, with at least four major newspapers blogging live from Phoenix. The hearing is expected to continue through Friday, and Judge Redfield T. Baum has said he will rule in the case no later than Oct. 1, when the NHL’s 2009-2010 season beings.

The Coyotes franchise, incidentally, moved to Phoenix from their original home in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1996 because of financial problems.

By: Caryn Tamber

Many news junkies will be keeping an eye on Afghanistan’s national elections Thursday, but for Mike Smith, it’s different.

Smith, a Gordon Feinblatt employment lawyer, has met three of the major candidates–incumbent Hamid Karzai and challengers Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah–and counts Ghani as a close friend. As I wrote last year, Smith has done a lot of pro bono work on Afghanistan issues, including working with a group proposing a new labor and employment code for the country, working to get the post-invasion Afghan government dismissed from a lawsuit filed by families of 9/11 attack victims and aimed at the pre-invasion Taliban government, representing Afghan Guantánamo Bay detainees and arranging a partnership between Kabul University and his alma mater, Colgate University.

Smith is rooting for long-shot Ghani, a former finance minister in Afghanistan, to win the election.

“I think he’s what the doctor [ordered] for Afghanistan, frankly, but people vote the way they vote,” Smith said.

Smith said there were high hopes for Karzai when he took office in 2004. He surrounded himself with competent, honest people. But over the past five years, many of those people have left, and Karzai has tolerated an extraordinary amount of corruption. Karzai is still seen as the front-runner in the election.

Smith said he believes Karzai’s support comes from four camps: people who believe in Karzai, those who have benefitted from the corruption in his administration, those who are following their local warlord’s voting instructions and those practicing “aggressive apathy” by sticking with the status quo.

The American-educated Ghani would focus on ending corruption, training Afghan troops and decreasing unemployment, on the theory that young men are joining the Taliban fighters not for ideological reasons but because it’s a paying job, Smith said.Smith said Abdullah, a former foreign minister, would be a decent second choice if Ghani does not win. Abdullah is expected toget the second-highest number of votes.

“I think Abdullah Abdullah would not be a horrific choice,” he said.

Media outlets have reported that even if, as expected, Karzai gets more votes than any other candidate, he may not win the more than 50 percent necessary to avoid a runoff election with his closest challenger. That, Smith guessed, is Karzai’s worst nightmare.

It is possible that even if Karzai wins reelection, he will appoint Ghani as a sort of chief executive.