Twenty-four years ago, the owner of the Boston Garden wanted a new arena, and local lawmakers wanted a stream of funding to help build and maintain the city’s recreational facilities, such as hockey rinks.
So they reached a deal: As part of winning state approval for a new $160 million facility, home to the Boston Celtics and the Boston Bruins, the owner of the Garden would host three fund-raisers a year to benefit the agency that oversees the city’s recreational facilities.
And then the fund-raising deal was forgotten. It was not until this past spring, when a group of teenagers from Hyde Square — eager to find funding for a new hockey rink in their neighborhood — began researching the old agreement that anyone realized the truth: The Garden had not held even one of those promised fund-raisers.