money playing in the 5,000-seat Garden. The team was so strapped for money that they traded Conacher to the New York Americans during the 1926-27 season for a journeyman player and $2,000. Conacher had been the highest-paid NHL player at $7,500 a year. The Pirates later moved the team across the state to become the Philadelphia Quakers for the franchise's last season in 1930-31. The Garden still witnessed ice hockey even during these dark financial times. In 1930, Roy Schooley founded a new Yellow Jackets team, which played for two years in the International Hockey League (IHL). Pittsburgh theatre chain owner John H. Harris secured a lease on the Garden in 1932 and by 1935 established a third Yellow Jackets incarnation which he entered in the Eastern Amateur Hockey League. In the 1935–36 season, the Yellow Jackets shared the Garden's ice time with the short-lived Pittsburgh Shamrocks of the IHL. Harris also scheduled boxing and rodeos at the Garden. One notable rodeo act to come to the Gardens was Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger, who performed there on April 30, 1945. Hornets, Ice Capades and Ironmen: 1936–1955 Several other historic events took place at the Garden during Harris' tenure. First, on March 31, 1936 he hired Sonja Henie, a 24-year-old Norwegian figure skater, to perform before a Yellow Jackets' home game. Harris found it difficult to draw a large crowd to hockey games during the Great Depression, so he hired Henie to entertain the audience between periods. The performances were a rousing success, and Harris soon set out to create an ice show to rival the song and dance spectaculars that were popular on Broadway. He developed the Ice Capades, which premiered in September 1940. The skating corps of 150 young women clad in elaborate costumes captivated audiences. Harris's Ice Capades, founded in Pittsburgh with an $85,000 investment, was sold in 1963 for $5.5 million. Harris also used the Gardens for Ice Capades auditions and as the show's training school, since many of the show's performers were from western Pennsylvania. Then on October 4, 1936, Harris purchased the Detroit Olympics and moved the team to Pittsburgh, where they were renamed the Pittsburgh Hornets, and became a member of the American Hockey League. Some players from the Yellow Jackets and Shamrocks players then joined the Hornets. The Yellow Jackets formally folded, while the Garden would be home for the Hornets