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The puck has yet to drop on the 2009-10 NHL season, but already the biggest faceoff of the year is upon us.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie face each other in court today – lines drawn in the battle for the Phoenix Coyotes – in what has been a summer filled with stinging rhetoric, public posturing and thousands of billable hours.

— Kevin McGran, Toronto Star

Today is a very big day for Jim Balsillie's bid for this team, as we could very well see a decision on whether or not he can purchase the team over the NHL's wishes and whether the bankruptcy court can push a franchise relocation on the league.

If the judge rules against Balsillie on either one of those issues, this leg of his pursuit of an NHL team is over eight days before we even get to the auction.

I'm still reading through some of the latest documents filed in court over the past few days, so if I see anything of note, I'll be posting it below. Expect to see some news coming out of the courtroom beginning at noon today, with Brahm Resnik and David Shoalts being two good journalists to follow for the news as it happens.

Here's the position of the unsecured creditors committee, which objects to the Ice Edge bid but accepts the other two:

While none of the three offers propose to satisfy creditor claims in full, the Committee believes that the PSE and NHL offers are sufficiently definitive, provide sufficient funding for the administrative expenses of the bankruptcy cases, and provide a likely and meaningful return to most creditors. The Committee supports the offers proposed by PSE and the NHL. The Ice Edge offer contains several contingencies and returns less to the estates’ creditors. Accordingly, the Committee objects to the Ice Edge offer in its current form.

Jerry Moyes offers his objection to the NHL's bid here and there are some noteworthy tidbits in there:

The NHL Bid is particularly troubling. The NHL Bid contemplates a possible relocation sale of the Phoenix Coyotes after the NHL purchases it, despite demonizing the Debtors for attempting the same thing pre- and post-petition. The difference, however, is that the structure of the NHL Bid allows the NHL — and not creditors — to reap the benefits of a future relocation sale.

Dirk Hoag, meanwhile, looks at how moving the Coyotes this fall would affect the league schedule, with some of the Pacific Division teams taking the biggest hit in terms of more miles logged.