Larry Kwong, 94, Dies; N.H.L.’s First Player of Asian Descent

[Jaimito]

identity politics aside, this is about a young Canadian boy from BC who had a dream and got a shift in the NHL at one of the biggest markets.  It was nice for Canucks to honor him last month, before he died. 

 

 

CBC article:

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/larry-kwong-calgary-nhl-1.4582793

1st NHL player of colour, Larry Kwong, dies at 94
Chinese-Canadian right wing, top player in the minor leagues, played single shift in the NHL

 

The first player to break the NHL's colour barrier has died at age 94 in Calgary. 
Larry Kwong, who was Chinese-Canadian, played a short, history-making shift in 1948 — an achievement now lauded as pioneering for the sport.
A year after Jackie Robinson broke baseball's colour barrier, Kwong spent less than a minute on NHL ice. He was invited to play the last shift of the third period for the New York Rangers in a game against the Montreal Canadiens.
At the time, Kwong was the leading scorer for his minor league team, the New York Rovers. He was a favourite of both the media and fans and was nicknamed both "China Clipper" and "King Kwong."

Kwong spoke with CBC in 2013 about his life in hockey and the racism he faced along the way. (CBC)
He later said he often wondered how much racism and discrimination played into why he wasn't given a fair shot at playing professional hockey.

"I was disappointed in them because when I made the Rangers, the whole country had my name in the paper that I was playing in the game," Kwong told CBC News in 2013. "And it turned out, I didn't get much of a chance."
He returned to his minor league team shortly after the game, and the single shift was later deemed a publicity stunt. Kwong went on to become a scoring star and coach in senior hockey leagues in Canada and Europe.
'He'll be there forever'
A few years ago, Kwong's achievement was honoured as helping to break the sport's colour barrier.
A school teacher and a student in Kwong's hometown of Vernon, B.C., launched a petition to induct Kwong into the BC Sports Hall of Fame.
"I thought it would be really cool… and once he gets in there, he'll be there forever," said then-10-year-old student Gavin Donald.
In 2013 — 65 years after stepping onto NHL ice — their efforts paid off and Kwong entered the hall of fame.
"The more you look into Larry's story, the more you see an exemplary life and you see how Canada has changed," teacher Chad Soon told CBC on Monday. "And it was through the efforts of people like Larry, showing us the way and showing that everybody should be included."

Vernon, B.C. teacher Chad Soon, far left, and his former student Gavin Donald, far right, were one of the driving forces behind Kwong's induction into the BC Sports Hall of Fame. (Chad Soon)
Kwong started playing hockey on frozen ponds in Vernon as a child. But at the time, his family, who were local grocery store owners, faced segregation and, like all Chinese-Canadians at the time, were banned from even voting.
But Kwong listened to the hockey game on the radio every Saturday night and kept playing despite discrimination.
"I was afraid to tell my family because if I did tell them that, the first thing they would say is, 'You're not going anymore,'" Kwong said. "And that means I couldn't play hockey or sports. I toughed it out, just toughed it out."

Kwong was a born athlete and stayed active into his 90s. (CBC)
He joined the Vernon Hydrophones and quickly became the team's star player. He then jumped to the senior league, where the pay was a promise of a job in a local smelter.
"We were all working for a job in those days. We didn't get the money that they're getting now," Kwong told CBC News. "They wouldn't give me a job because I was Chinese."
His hockey talent shone through and he was recruited by the New York Rangers' scout for their top Eastern Hockey League farm team, the New York Rovers. He later became a top player in the Quebec senior professional league and he played in England and Switzerland, where he also coached.
Kwong later lost both legs due to poor circulation, yet even into his 90s, he continued to go to the gym three times a week.
An obituary says Kwong died peacefully on March 15 in Calgary. Donations in his memory are being accepted by the Calgary Rotary Foundation, and a tree will be planted in his name at Fish Creek Provincial Park.

 

NYT article:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/obituaries/larry-kwong-94-dies-nhls-first-asian-american-player.html?referer=https://www.bing.com/search?q=canucks+larry+kwong&FORM=EDGENN

 

Larry Kwong, 94, Dies;
N.H.L.’s First Player of Asian Descent
Image

Larry Kwong in 1948, the year he became the first person of Asian descent to play in the National Hockey League. He played a single shift for the New York Rangers.
By Richard Goldstein
March 19, 2018
Larry Kwong’s National Hockey League career began and ended on the same night. He played a single shift, lasting a minute or so, for the Rangers against the Canadiens at Montreal on March 13, 1948. He scored no goals, had no assists and received no penalties.
Kwong, a 5-foot-6-inch center known as the China Clipper for his speed, played in Quebec and Europe after that season. But when he died on Thursday in Calgary, Alberta, at 94, he was remembered as an N.H.L. pioneer. A Chinese-Canadian born in British Columbia, he was the league’s first player of Asian descent.
The Rangers had discovered Kwong after he played for a Canadian Army hockey team in World War II. They signed him in 1946 for their Rovers farm team, with which they shared the Madison Square Garden ice. The unofficial mayor of Chinatown, Shavey Lee, and two showgirls from the China Doll nightclub in Midtown Manhattan honored him there one night.
The Rangers called Kwong up from the Rovers in March 1948 with only a few games left in their season. But their coach, Frank Boucher, waited until the Montreal game was nearly over before putting Kwong on the ice.
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“When I had a chance to become a Ranger I was really excited,” Kwong told The New York Times in 2013. “I said to myself: ‘That’s what I wanted to be since I was a young boy. I wanted to play in the N.H.L.’ ”
But he didn’t dress again for the Rangers, and he despaired of playing for them again.
“I didn’t get a real chance to show what I can do,” he said.
Long afterward, a schoolteacher in Calgary, Alberta, Chad Soon, who was also of Chinese descent and had heard stories of Kwong’s career from his grandfather, campaigned to honor him as an N.H.L. trailblazer.
“So compelling a story, so deserving of recognition,” Mr. Soon once told The Globe and Mail of Toronto. “I became determined to do what I could to get him some attention.”
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He succeeded. The Calgary Flames honored Kwong at their arena, the Saddledome, in 2008, and the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto obtained a sweater he wore in the early 1940s with the Nanaimo Clippers of British Columbia.
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Kwong being inducted into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame in Vancouver in 2013.
Credit
B.C. Sports Hall of Fame
Kwong was interviewed for the 2011 documentary “Lost Years,” telling of the Chinese-Canadian experience, and the British Columbia Sports of Hall of Fame inducted him in 2013.
To mark the Chinese New Year, the Vancouver Canucks honored Kwong before their game with the Boston Bruins on Feb. 17 in a ceremony at which his daughter, Kristina Heintz, dropped a ceremonial first puck.
“Larry made his wing men look good because he was a great passer,” the Canadiens’ Hall of Fame center Jean Beliveau, who played against Kwong in the minors in Quebec, told The Times. “He was doing what a center man is supposed to do.”
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Larry Kwong was born Eng Kai Geong on June 17, 1923, in Vernon, British Columbia, the second-youngest of 15 children. His father, who emigrated from the Canton area of China in the 1880s, owned a grocery store named Kwong Hing Lung (commonly translated as Abundant Prosperity). Since customers referred to the family as the Kwongs, the boy took the name Larry Kwong.
Kwong starred for a midget-hockey provincial championship team, then joined a team in Trail, British Columbia, known as the Smoke Eaters, who rewarded their players by getting them well-paying jobs at the local smelter.
“I made the team, but they wouldn’t give me a job because I was Chinese,” Kwong told The Globe and Mail. He settled for work as a bellboy at a local hotel.
After his single shift as a Ranger, Kwong played with the Valleyfield Braves in the Quebec senior league and was named the league’s most valuable player in 1951. He closed out his career in the late 1950s, playing in England and in Switzerland, where he also coached and taught tennis before opening a grocery with a brother in Calgary.
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Kwong’s death was confirmed by his daughter, from his marriage to his first wife, Audrey, who died before him, as did his second wife, Janine. He is also survived by two sisters, Betty Chan and Ina Ng, and two granddaughters.
Kwong became a Ranger four months after Wat Misaka, a Japanese-American, appeared at guard in three games for the Knicks, becoming the first player of Asian background in the N.B.A. (known then as the Basketball Association of America). More than a dozen players of Asian ancestry have followed Kwong in the N.H.L., most notably Paul Kariya, a Vancouver native of Japanese descent, who played from 1994 to 2009 and scored 300 goals.
Kwong was reluctant to blame discrimination for his inability to stick with the Rangers or get a chance with any of the other N.H.L. teams in what was then a six-club league.
But, he said in a 2013 interview with the CBC: “You wonder. Who knows?”
Correction: March 19, 2018
An earlier version of the headline on this article misstated Larry Kwong’s nationality. He was a Canadian, not an American.

[Nuxfanabroad]

You talk about making the "show" for a cuppa' coffee..how 'bout a shot of espresso?

 

Sad this good fellow didn't get a proper chance. Impressive that he didn't seem bitter about it. Certainly an adventurous life, well-lived.

 

RIP to Mr Kwong, & condolences to his kin. It really is nice that the Canucks did that recent tribute. Kudos to the team.