The new team was nicknamed "Tex's Rangers" and later became known as the New York Rangers. Rickard sought to repeat the success of the Madison Square Garden by building seven "Madison Square Gardens" around the country. In 1927, a group led by Rickard signed a 25-year lease for a sports arena at the new North Station facility in Boston. The Boston Garden opened on November 17, 1928. In 1929, Rickard and George R. K. Carter opened the Miami Beach Kennel Club greyhound track. They also planned a number of other ventures, including a jai-alai grounds adjacent to the kennel club and a horse track on an island in Biscayne Bay. Rickard also hoped to someday to build a hotel and casino that would rival those in Monte Carlo. Rickard met Maxine Hodges, a former actress 33 years his junior at the Dempsey–Firpo fight. The couple married on October 7, 1926, in Lewisburg, West Virginia. On June 7, 1927, the couple's daughter, Maxine Texas Rickard, was born. On December 26, 1928, Rickard left New York for Miami Beach, Florida, where he was completing arrangements for a fight between Jack Sharkey and Young Stribling and attending the opening of the Miami Beach Kennel Club. On New Year's Eve, Rickard was stricken with appendicitis and was operated on. Rickard died on January 6, 1929, due to complications from his appendectomy. He was interred at Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, NY.