Calgary, Three NHL Groups Begin Season With New Authorized Leaders

The Calgary Flames employed their first in-house lawyer as three different Nationwide Hockey League golf equipment put in new authorized leaders forward of the beginning of the 2022-23 season.

Robyn Scott moved throughout Canada to start out working final month for the Flames as normal counsel and company secretary of Calgary Sports activities and Leisure Corp. She most not too long ago served as authorized chief for customer administration startup iLobby Corp. and trucking logistics supplier Fleet Full, each primarily based in Toronto.

Scott’s new employer had beforehand relied on outdoors counsel. One in every of them is Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer, a Calgary-based regulation agency recognized for its power work.

Town of Calgary and the Flames introduced Oct. 20 that they’ve resumed negotiations on a roughly $650 million sports activities enviornment for the NHL staff, whose dwelling ice for the previous 39 years has been the Scotiabank Saddledome, the second-oldest enviornment within the league behind New York’s Madison Sq. Backyard.

Getting a brand new facility for the Flames to exchange the Saddledome, which wants repairs after being constructed for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, is a part of Scott’s authorized function.

“That’s the objective,” she stated when requested concerning the enviornment talks.

A Rink Relocation

Scott started her profession working for Rogers Communications Inc., a Toronto-based communications large that owns a slate of native sports activities groups, together with MLB’s Blue Jays, MLS’s Toronto FC, the NBA’s Raptors, NHL’s Maple Leafs, and CFL’s Argonauts.

Throughout her 5 years at Rogers, Scott labored with the Blue Jays and helped deliver the NFL’s Buffalo Payments to Toronto for a collection of video games. She began the authorized and compliance operate for 4 completely different corporations after leaving Rogers, a swap that Scott stated helped her achieve important expertise in creating company regulation departments from scratch. She’s doing so for a fifth time in Calgary.

Scott’s typical day includes a variety of points, together with contracts, mental property, and licensing. “You begin out to be a fairly respectable generalist after which simply know when to name in outdoors counsel,” she stated.

Transferring nearly throughout the North American continent was a possible hurdle to her transfer, however the native of Thunder Bay, Ontario, stated her household was aware of Alberta after spending a month within the province in the course of the pandemic. Her younger son loved snowboarding in Banff—a brief drive from Calgary—whereas she labored remotely.

That have, in addition to a summer season Scott spent in Alberta in her 20s, satisfied her to ditch a Toronto-based authorized profession for one out West.

Calgary, ranked this yr because the world’s third-most livable metropolis, additionally not too long ago had its first main snowfall of the season, which Scott jokingly known as a “bit surprising to the system.”

Scott stated attorneys with the NHL and its member golf equipment have been an excellent help system as she settles into her job. The Flames have been one of many few remaining groups within the league to not have an in-house lawyer till she got here aboard, Scott stated.

N. Murray Edwards, a Canadian oil sands billionaire and former Burnet Duckworth companion, is one among 4 businessmen that management the personal firm that owns the Flames. The group’s different sports activities holdings embody the CFL’s Calgary Stampeders, the Nationwide Lacrosse League’s Calgary Roughnecks, and minor league hockey groups the Calgary Hitmen and Flames affiliate the Calgary Wranglers.

Authorized Shift Change

At the least three different NHL groups—the Dallas Stars, Ottawa Senators, and Pittsburgh Penguins—have new authorized chiefs this season.

The Penguins promoted chief individuals officer and deputy normal counsel Tracey McCants Lewis in August to the highest authorized function, making her the second Black authorized chief for an NHL staff. She succeeded normal counsel Kevin Acklin, who was elevated in June to president of enterprise operations.

Acklin, a former Pittsburgh mayoral candidate who was as soon as a companion at Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr, joined the Penguins in 2018 after serving as authorized chief for a utility firm. The staff, whose president of hockey operations is Harvard Regulation College graduate Brian Burke, was offered final yr for nearly $900 million.

The Penguins added to their authorized ranks final month by bringing on United Soccer League affiliate normal counsel Michael Donadio as a deputy normal counsel.

A Senators spokesman confirmed the staff introduced again former longtime senior authorized counsel Richard Stacey as normal counsel in August. Stacey spent the previous yr working for Solace Corp., an Ottawa-based software program firm.

Stacey’s return comes after the Senators noticed former Norton Rose Fulbright labor and employment companion Peter MacTavish exit over the summer season to affix Quebec-based hockey company Quartexx Administration as a senior counsel and participant agent.

C. Taylor White, an affiliate normal counsel employed by the Stars final yr, stated by way of e mail that he’s been appearing normal counsel for the membership since its longtime authorized chief Alana Matthews stop in Might to start out her personal girls’s customized clothes firm.

Matthews, a working mother who grew up taking part in on an all-boys hockey staff, introduced by way of LinkedIn her determination to step right down to deal with her new function as founder and chief government of Alautus Clothes Co. “It’s energizing to construct an organization that’s targeted on serving girls,” she stated by way of e mail.

Extra Membership Authorized Strikes

Different latest NHL recruits embody:

• The Chicago Blackhawks, a so-called Unique Six staff that final yr employed its first-ever normal counsel, have welcomed aboard one other in-house lawyer in Charles Eberhardt III. The previous labor and employment affiliate at Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete in Kansas Metropolis, Mo., joined the staff as counsel in August.
• The Tampa Bay Lightning, who misplaced the Stanley Cup this yr amid a reshuffling of their in-house authorized roster, employed former Sidley Austin managing affiliate Donald Munson that very same month as a company counsel. Munson targeted on leisure, media, and sports activities work at Sidley in Los Angeles. He beforehand was a company affiliate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in New York.
• The Seattle Kraken, an growth franchise that employed two new attorneys forward of taking the ice final yr at Amazon.com Inc.-sponsored Local weather Pledge Area, picked up affiliate counsel Andrew Perez in June. Perez, who works for the staff and its dwelling enviornment, was most not too long ago a company affiliate at Perkins Coie.
• Delaware North Inc. employed Shannon Torgerson in Might as assistant normal counsel for transactional and regulatory issues for the meals service and hospitality firm. Torgerson, a former compliance director at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Heart, works for the Boston Bruins and their dwelling ice, TD Backyard, each of that are owned by Delaware North chairman Jeremy Jacobs Sr.