The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-04-08
Redwings Get 'ReOenge' For 1941 ShutOut
McNally, Quick Change Artist, Made Patrons Comfortable And Garden a Model Arena
BY ROBERT MELLACE NEA Stan COrreHnNntlant

New York.-Men travelled from every country of this globe where there is an amusement area to see the wonders of Madison Square Garden-not the performances of peerless athletes and entertainers, but those of @ man the mob never paid to sec.
 They came to see what made Madison Square Garden run, to study the quick change methods of James McNally, Scene-Shiftlng craftsman who made the Eighth Avenue amphitheater the model of every arena in the world.
 Someone should have written the story of Big Jim McNally years ago. He has done so much for the amusement loving and thrill.seek- ing public, not to mention promot. CTS, over a span of 46 years.
 It must have seemed strange to Superintendent McNally to move his last prop and put out the lights in the House of Rickard for the last time.
 Jim, 68, will take his ease at his St. Albans, Long Island, home.
 Retirement rings the bell on Q career that had its beginning at the old Garden on Madison Ave. nue between West 26th and 27th Streets in 1897, when McNally left the controls of a streetcar to get into the game of which he has been such an integral part.
 FLAWLESS SCHEDULES
 McNally invented Q blow which reduced the time of removing ice from II hours for 60 men to 6S minutes for six.
 He perfected fiawless schedules for converting overnight for all sorts of shows--ice, horse, dog, chicken or what have you-the cir- GUS, hockey, ski carnivalS, fights, wrestling, basketball, rodeoS, track and field meets siX-day bicycle races. soccer, dance marathons, the- atrical productions, political rallies, meetings, anything anyone wants to put on for 8 rental of $50OO per diem.
 The pipes are freezing for hook ey while the last rounds are being fought, and the circus is moving in downstairs. When the Garden floor is required for the following per- formance, McNally-trained men have it cleared of seats before the arena is cleared of people.
 Since the new Gardens opening in 1925, Jim McNally has rebuilt everything but the roof to facilitate the movement of the spectacular.
 He raised Q balcony to permit passage of a mounted horseman and elephant with mahout aboard, planned the gigantic basement where fans for one admission can see the sideshows and menagarie before moving upstairs for the circus in a movement common to no other show place.
 REGARDLESS OF SURFACE
 He installed $S0o,OoO worth of fans in order that Tex Ricard's fetish for pleasing might te satis- fled in permitting the faithful to smoke.
 McNally has taken up the bas- ketball floor on Thursday to make room for the ringsids for Fridays fight, and removed the ringstde for Saturdays Policemen'S Ball, which gave way to Sunday after noon's and nights hockey matches and the necessary ice.
 Then he changed the ice for Mondays ice carnival as figure skaters need a softer, slower and thicker surface than the hard and fast hockey rink. Ice is made by B miles of brine-carrying pipes which freeze water sprayed on the hard floor.
 He removed a 2o0-foot ski. jump at midnight on Saturday, lafd bets with rivals from the Boston Gar den that a hockey game would be played Sunday afternoon-won.
 When you sit in on any spec tacle, at the Garden or elsewhere, you are comfortable because Jim McNally made a career of pleasing you, and his methods will always be copied as the best.