Canadian Lawyer

May 2011

The most widely read magazine for Canadian lawyers

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CROSS EXAMINED Hockey and tax law, Calgary lawyer's hockey background and current practice inform his new position as commissioner of the Canadian Junior Hockey League. BY JEFF MACKINNON Lamb's a smart guy. He decided it was time to give up the pursuit of the puck and move on to the real world. It's a long way from the East Coast Hockey League to the National Hockey League and it's rare for a player to make the jump that far. Plus, salary wise, there are a lot of jobs that pay better. Walking away wasn't that difficult. "With my background from Princeton I wasn't prepared to go back and not play and be frustrated. So, I decided I was going to come back to Canada and I applied to law schools and got in," he says, looking out over Calgary's Father David Bauer Arena, once home to Canada's dear- ly departed national hockey program. The Edmonton native returned to the Prairies in 2002 and started on a path that led him to law school in 2005, an Alberta call to the bar in 2008, and a position with Burnet Duckworth & Palmer LLP. This past January, the 32-year-old mar- ried father of two little girls was appointed commissioner of the Canadian Junior Hockey League, the body that oversees the Tier 1 junior game across the country. The CJHL's new commissioner is in Kirk Lamb at Father David Bauer Arena in Calgary. K irk Lamb's professional hockey career lasted only a few months. It began and ended in New Jersey, where he was injured while playing with the East Coast Hockey League's Trenton Titans in his first year out of Princeton University. He was carried off the ice. The bro- ken leg he suffered healed quickly, he recalls, but after six weeks a staph infec- tion developed in the bone. It required surgery that involved scraping away the infection — an operation would have pushed back Lamb's return to the Titans until well into the next season. 24 M AY 2011 www. CANADIAN Lawyermag.com stark contrast to the NHL's American boss, Gary Bettman, who is often lambasted north of the border for not growing up loving the game, and for treating it as a business first and not a precious commod- ity. "They were looking for someone who had passion for the game. They were then looking for someone who had the energy and enthusiasm to take the group forward. I know having the experience — having played hockey and having been involved at the administration level for a few years — certainly didn't hurt," says Lamb. "Once I was able to provide those things, I think being a lawyer obviously added some ben- efits that they were looking for." Lamb is a fine example of what junior hockey can do for a man. He parlayed his Jeff Mackinnon hand in hand

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