Between 1910 and 1915, hockey games were mostly played at the Winter Garden at Exposition Hall, located near the city's Point. Therefore, the Gardens was used mostly for recreational skating and amateur hockey matches for teams. Crowds also attended skating sessions at Gardens and took part in public skating events. Public skating was held every evening, except on days for performances, with Saturday morning being set aside for school children who wanted to learn how to skate. in 1911, Lester Patrick started the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, and in order to learn how to generate artificial ice, he came to the Duquesne Gardens to study the procedure. On March 16, 1920, the United States men's national ice hockey team was founded at the Gardens. That same year at the Gardens, Roy Schooley, the arena's manager, put together an 11-player squad that won silver at the Antwerp Games, in the sport's Olympic debut. The Gardens also hosted several contests, which were played on Mondays and Tuesdays, to help raise money in order to cover the expenses associated with sending the U.S. Olympic Hockey team to the games held in Antwerp, Belgium.