Peter A. Tyrrell
Encyclopedia
Philadelphia Arena
The Philadelphia Arena was an arena used mainly for sporting events located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.The building, originally named the Philadelphia Ice Palace and Auditorium, was located at 4530 Market Street, next to what would become the WFIL TV Studio which broadcast American Bandstand. ...
. He was one of eleven founders of what eventually became the National Basketball Association
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
, and was a founder and the first president of the Ice Capades
Ice Capades
The Ice Capades was a traveling entertainment show featuring theatrical performances involving ice skating. Shows often featured former Olympicand National Champion figure skaters who had retired from amateur competition....
.
In 1919, he became a sport
Sport
A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...
s publicist
Publicist
A publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a public figure, especially a celebrity, a business, or for a work such as a book, film or album...
and established a 3,000 seat boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
arena in West Manayunk
Manayunk, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Manayunk is a neighborhood in the northwestern section of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States. Located on the banks of the Schuylkill River, it contains the first canal begun in the United States . The area's name comes from the language of the Lenape Indians...
, across the Schuylkill River
Schuylkill River
The Schuylkill River is a river in Pennsylvania. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River.The river is about long. Its watershed of about lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania. The source of its eastern branch is in the Appalachian Mountains at Tuscarora Springs, near Tamaqua in...
from Philadelphia. At the time, the city of Philadelphia limited boxing contests to six rounds; since his arena was outside the city, he could, and did, stage 15-round bouts there. In 1929 he became a boxing matchmaker with the Philadelphia Arena, which at that time was the city's largest public entertainment venue. He later became publicist for the Arena, then served as its general manager from 1934–1958. In 1958, he and some associates bought the Arena, and Tyrrell became president and general manager. He held those positions until 1965, at which time the Arena was sold.
At the Arena during the 1940s, Tyrrell organized what were considered to be the world's first televised ice show
Ice show
An ice show refers to an entertainment production which is primarily performed by ice skaters. Such shows may primarily be skating exhibitions, or may be musical and/or dramatic in nature, using skating as a medium in order to accompany a musical work or to present a story. The term ice show...
, boxing match, basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
game, and ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
game. During five weeks in 1949 he arranged and promoted a welterweight
Welterweight
Welterweight is a weight class division in combat sports. Originally the term "welterweight" was used only in boxing, but other combat sports like kickboxing, taekwondo and mixed martial arts also began to use it for their own weight division system...
boxing championship match between Sugar Ray Robinson
Sugar Ray Robinson
Sugar Ray Robinson was an African-American professional boxer. Frequently cited as the greatest boxer of all time, Robinson's performances in the welterweight and middleweight divisions prompted sportswriters to create "pound for pound" rankings, where they compared fighters regardless of weight...
and Kid Gavilan
Kid Gavilan
Gerardo González , better known in the boxing world as Kid Gavilan, was a former world welterweight champion from Cuba...
.
During his time with the Arena, Tyrrell "significantly enriched the variety of public entertainment in Philadelphia and elsewhere." He was one of the first to book the Shipstad and Johnson ice show, the success of this endeavor leading to the establishment of the Ice Follies
Ice Follies
Shipstads & Johnson Ice Follies was a touring ice show featuring elaborate production numbers, similar in concept to Ice Capades. It was founded in 1937 by Eddie Shipstad, Roy Shipstad, and Oscar Johnson, who also skated in the show. In later years, Olympic skaters such as Donald Jackson, Barbara...
, one of the era's most successful entertainment shows. In 1940, he formed an association with ten Eastern sports arenas to finance the Ice Capades
Ice Capades
The Ice Capades was a traveling entertainment show featuring theatrical performances involving ice skating. Shows often featured former Olympicand National Champion figure skaters who had retired from amateur competition....
, a show formed along the lines of the Ice Follies. Tyrrell became manager and president of the group, and was actively involved in its rehearsals, travels, and performances. He was a director of the Ice Capades until 1963 when the company was sold. During these years he convinced ice skating
Ice skating
Ice skating is moving on ice by using ice skates. It can be done for a variety of reasons, including leisure, traveling, and various sports. Ice skating occurs both on specially prepared indoor and outdoor tracks, as well as on naturally occurring bodies of frozen water, such as lakes and...
champion Sonja Henie
Sonja Henie
Sonja Henie was a Norwegian figure skater and film star. She was a three-time Olympic Champion in Ladies Singles, a ten-time World Champion and a six-time European Champion . Henie won more Olympic and World titles than any other ladies figure skater...
to "turn professional." She made her professional debut at the Arena.
Tyrrell was also involved in rodeo
Rodeo
Rodeo is a competitive sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later the United States, Canada, South America and Australia. It was based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States,...
s, bringing Gene Autry
Gene Autry
Orvon Grover Autry , better known as Gene Autry, was an American performer who gained fame as The Singing Cowboy on the radio, in movies and on television for more than three decades beginning in the 1930s...
and his rodeo for the first time to Philadelphia. When Autry left the show, Tyrrell replaced him with Roy Rogers
Roy Rogers
Roy Rogers, born Leonard Franklin Slye , was an American singer and cowboy actor, one of the most heavily marketed and merchandised stars of his era, as well as being the namesake of the Roy Rogers Restaurants franchised chain...
. Tyrrell was known for bringing a wide range of entertainments to the Arena. Events held during his time there included the Johnny Weismuller and Buster Crabbe
Buster Crabbe
Clarence Linden "Buster" Crabbe was an American athlete and actor, who starred in a number of popular serials in the 1930s and 1940s.-Birth:...
swimming shows, roller derbies
Roller derby
Roller derby is a contact sport played by two teams of five members roller skating in the same direction around a track. Game play consists of a series of short matchups in which both teams designate a scoring player who scores points by lapping members of the opposing team...
, billiards
Billiards
Cue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber .Historically, the umbrella term was billiards...
contests, six-day bicycle race
Six-day racing
A six or six-day is a track cycling race that lasts six days. Six-day races started in Britain, spread to many regions of the world, were brought to their modern style in the United States and are now mainly a European event. Initially, individuals competed alone, the winner being the individual...
s, dance marathons, rocking chair derbies, furniture sales, automobile shows, an endurance race between men and horses, and performances by the Spanish Riding School
Spanish Riding School
The Spanish Riding School of Vienna, Austria, is a traditional riding school for Lipizzan horses, which perform in the Winter Riding School in the Hofburg...
, the Moscow State Circus
Moscow State Circus
The title “Moscow State Circus” is used for a variety of circuses. Most commonly, it refers to one of the two circus buildings in Moscow, the “” and the “Bolshoi Circus” , or to traveling shows which may or may not be directly related to Russia.The Russian Circus rose to world acclaim during the...
, the Scots Guards Band
Scots Guards Band
The Band of the Scots Guards is one of five bands in the Foot Guards Regiments in the Household Division which primarily guards the British monarch....
, Gracie Fields
Gracie Fields
Dame Gracie Fields, DBE , was an English-born, later Italian-based actress, singer and comedienne and star of both cinema and music hall.-Early life:...
, Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
, Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
, Victor Borge
Victor Borge
Victor Borge ,born Børge Rosenbaum, was a Danish comedian, conductor and pianist, affectionately known as The Clown Prince of Denmark,The Unmelancholy Dane,and The Great Dane.-Early life and career:...
, Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, and Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century...
.
In addition to his promotional activities, Tyrrell was one of the founders of the Basketball Association of America
Basketball Association of America
The Basketball Association of America was a professional basketball league in North America, founded in 1946. The league merged with the National Basketball League in 1949, forming the National Basketball Association ...
(BAA), a forerunner of today's National Basketball Association. He briefly managed the Philadelphia Warriors professional basketball team, which won the BAA championship in 1946–1947. He also brought the Philadelphia Ramblers
Philadelphia Ramblers
The Philadelphia Ramblers were a minor professional ice hockey team based in the Philadelphia Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Ramblers played for six seasons during the infancy of the American Hockey League from 1935 to 1941.-History:...
ice hockey team to Philadelphia as a New York Rangers
New York Rangers
The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the borough of Manhattan in New York, New York, USA. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . Playing their home games at Madison Square Garden, the Rangers are one of the...
farm club.
Tyrrell received many awards from local groups for his charitable and fundraising activities. He won many trophies as an amateur golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
er, and was considered to be an exceptional pocket billiards
Pocket billiards
Pool, also more formally known as pocket billiards or pool billiards , is the family of cue sports and games played on a pool table having six receptacles called pockets along the , into which balls are deposited as the main goal of play. Popular versions include eight-ball and nine-ball...
player, playing exhibitions with many world champions.