In recent years the residents of Wilkes-Barre, a small city in Pennsylvania, have been nurturing dazzling dreams. For years their local ice rink lay vacant, while the park in which it stood suffered from neglect. Yet Thomas Leighton, the town mayor, had plans to turn the area into “the region’s premier recreational facility”.

Indeed, the local ice hockey team – dubbed the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins – were plotting to make the newly refurbished Ice-A-Rama their practice facility.