I was in Stockholm at the time and became acquainted with his manager, Dinty Scanlon, an energetic promoter who, in later years, induced Sonja Henie to come to America, and who for several years was her manager. Scanlon saw the possibilities of exploiting ice skating in America and broached the subject to me. He was the pioneer of the ice skating revues in America and to him goes the credit for inaugurating the ice extravaganzas that have since become part of our country’s winter sports schedule. I was then sports editor of the New York _Telegram_, and Scanlon, knowing how close I was to Rickard, showed me plans for the building of a huge ice rink in New York and asked whether I thought he could obtain Rickard’s aid. I was for the project and thought Tex would be interested. There was only one ice rink in New York at the time, the St. Nicholas Rink, and that had outlived its usefulness. Scanlon, discussing his plans, declared that if funds were available to build the rink, we could make the arena the ice sports center of America by getting contracts from Eastern colleges to use it for their hockey matches, as well as importing the Scandinavian, Swiss, and other famous European ice revues. With that in mind, I decided to lay Scanlon’s plans before Rickard and look for a location. We were aware that Tex Rickard’s long lease on the old Garden would soon expire and that the New York Life Insurance Company would not grant a further lease of more than one year. Stories had appeared in the _Wall Street Journal_ to the effect that the insurance company was anxious to demolish the old structure and build a home to house its own people. Scanlon and I figured the time was ripe for quick action. The Manhattan Railway Company, operating the street cars of New York along the main highways, was in bankruptcy proceedings, with Judge Julius Mayer in charge. Through Judge Mayer, I learned that any of the car barns, situated at Thirty-third Street and Fourth Avenue, Eighty-sixth Street and Madison Avenue, and Fiftieth Street and Eighth Avenue, could be purchased, provided we could obtain the bondholders’ consent. With that information, I proceeded. I requested Scanlon to obtain two extra blueprints for his proposed structure. A few days later, he came to my office with the plans and the architect’s picture of what the proposed sports arena would look like. The blueprint of the proposed structure was then published in the New York _Telegram_ with a story on the front page written by me. I pointed out that Rickard’s lease on the old Garden would soon expire and the building would be torn down within a few years; and to make certain that a substitute building to house sports in New York would be given the people, several sportsmen proposed to build a gigantic structure conveniently located near the theatrical district, the feature of which would be a skating rink and motion picture theatre.