Madison Square Garden (1925) Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Sports=== [[File:Cowboy Evans World Series Rodeo CONTESTANT.jpg|thumb|right|[[Steer wrestling|Bulldogging]] champion [[Cowboy Morgan Evans]] competition chit at Madison Square Garden's 1928 World Series Rodeo]] ====Boxing==== [[Boxing]] was Madison Square Garden III's principal claim to fame. The first bout took place on December 8, 1925, a week before its official opening. On January 17, 1941, 23,190 people witnessed [[Fritzie Zivic]]'s successful welterweight title defense against [[Henry Armstrong]], still the largest crowd at any of the Gardens.<ref>Baker, Mark A. (2019). ''Between the Ropes at Madison Square Garden, The History of an Iconic Boxing Ring, 1925-2007''. {{ISBN|978-1-4766-7183-3}}.</ref> ====Hockey==== The [[New York Rangers]], owned by the Garden's owner [[Tex Rickard]], got their name from a play on words involving his name: ''Tex's Rangers''. However, the Rangers were not the first NHL team to play at the Garden; the [[New York Americans]] had begun play in 1925 – and officially opened the Garden in front of 17,000 by losing to the [[Montreal Canadiens]], 3-1<ref name=ballp/> – [[Shorty Green]] of the Americans was the first player to score a goal in the arena.<ref name=Gazette/> The Americans were so tremendously successful that Rickard wanted his own team. The Rangers were founded in 1926 and played their first game in the Garden on November 16, 1926.<ref name=ballp/> Both teams played at the Garden until the Americans suspended operations in 1942 due to [[World War II]]. In the meantime, the Rangers had usurped the Americans with their own success, winning three [[Stanley Cup]]s between 1928 and 1940. The refusal of the Garden's management to allow the postwar resurrection of the Americans team was one popular theory underlying the [[Curse of 1940]], which supposedly prevented the Rangers from winning another Stanley Cup until 1994. Another alleged cause of "The Curse" stemmed from manager Kilpatrick burning the Garden's mortgage papers in the bowl of the Stanley Cup, made possible by receipts from the 1940 Cup run. Hockey purists believed that the trophy had been "defiled", leading to the Rangers' woes. The [[New York Rovers]], a farm team of the Rangers, played in the Garden on Sunday afternoons, while the Rangers played on Wednesday and Sunday nights.<ref name=ballp/> [[Tommy Lockhart]] managed the Rovers games and introduced on-ice promotions such as racing [[model aircraft]] and [[bicycle]]s around the arena, [[figure skating]] acts [[Ice Follies|Shipstads & Johnson Ice Follies]] and [[Sonja Henie]], and a skating [[grizzly bear]].<ref name="Miller">{{cite web|url=http://www.chuckthewriter.com/ehl.pdf|title=FROM ATLANTIC CITY TO TORONTO: The Boardwalk Trophy and the Eastern Hockey League|last=Miller|first=Chuck|website=Hockey Ink!|access-date=2018-04-16}}</ref> The fourth floor of the Garden had a second sheet of ice, used for public skating, recreational hockey, and as the Rangers' practice facility. ====Basketball==== The first professional basketball game was played in the 50th Street Garden on December 6, 1925, nine days before the arena officially opened. It pitted the [[Original Celtics]] against the [[Washington Palace Five]]. The Celtics won 35–31.<ref name=ballp /> The [[New York Knicks]] debuted there in 1946, although if there was an important college game, they played in the [[69th Regiment Armory]].<ref name=ballp /> Due to other event bookings in the arena, all their home games during the [[1951 NBA Finals|1951]], [[1952 NBA Finals|1952]] and [[1953 NBA Finals|1953]] [[NBA Finals]] were played at the Armory; thus MSG III never hosted an NBA Finals game. MSG III hosted the [[NBA All-Star Game]] in 1954, 1955 and 1968. In 1931, a highly successful college basketball triple header raised money for Mayor [[Jimmy Walker]]'s Unemployment Relief Fund. In 1934, [[Ned Irish]] began promoting a successful series of college basketball double headers at the Garden featuring a mix of local and national teams. MSG III began hosting the [[National Invitation Tournament]] annually in 1938, and hosted seven [[NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament|NCAA men's basketball championship]] finals between 1943 and 1950. On February 28, 1940, Madison Square Garden hosted the first televised basketball games in a Fordham-Pitt and [[1939–40 Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team|Georgetown]]-NYU doubleheader. A [[CCNY point shaving scandal|point shaving scandal]] involving games played at the Garden led the NCAA to reduce its use of the Garden, and caused some schools, including 1950 NCAA and NIT Champion [[1949–50 CCNY Beavers men's basketball team|City College of New York]] (CCNY), to be banned from playing there.<ref>''Nat Holman: The Man, His Legacy and CCNY''.[http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/library/exhibitions/holman/basketball_scandal.html "The 1951 Basketball Scandal"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071205215227/http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/library/exhibitions/holman/basketball_scandal.html |date=December 5, 2007 }} - The City College Library - [[City College of New York]].</ref> ====Professional wrestling==== [[Capitol Wrestling Corporation]]—along with its successor, the [[World Wide Wrestling Federation]]—promoted professional wrestling at the Garden during its last two decades. [[Toots Mondt]] and [[Jess McMahon]] owned CWC, which initially promoted tag team wrestling. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Mondt and McMahon were successful at promoting ethnic heroes of [[Stateside Puerto Ricans|Puerto Rican]] or [[Italian Americans|Italian descent]]. Two historic wrestling events took place at MSG III. On May 17, 1963, [[Bruno Sammartino]] defeated [["Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers]], via submission, in 48 seconds, to become the second ever [[WWWF World Heavyweight Champion]]. On November 19, 1957, the [[Dr. Jerry Graham]] & [[Dick the Bruiser]] vs. [[Edouard Carpentier]] & [[Argentina Rocca]] main event led to a race riot involving Italian and Puerto Rican fans of Carpentier and Rocca. After the riot, New York City nearly banned [[professional wrestling]] and children under the age of 14 were prohibited from attending.<ref name=Meltzer>{{cite web |url=http://www.f4wonline.com/component/content/article/36241-feb-3-1997-wrestling-observer-newsletter-jerry-graham-passes-away-future-of-nhb-in-new-york-in-serious-jeopardy-dave-brown-quits-nwo-gimmick-exposed-more |title=Wrestling Observer Newsletter, February 3, 1997 |publisher=Wrestling Observer Newsletter |access-date=April 10, 2014}}</ref> ====Cycling==== From 1925 until 1961, Madison Square Garden hosted the [[Six Days of New York]], an annual [[six-day racing]] event of [[track cycling]]. Upon its final running, it was the longest-running series in the world with 73 editions. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. 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