June 11, 2004

• 'China Clipper' made NHL History
  Taken from the China Daily
  03/10/2004
  Page15
  
  On March 13, 1948, Larry Kwong, a slick-skating forward from the Canadian town
  of Vernon, British Columbia, played his first and only game in the National
  Hockey League.
  
  In fact, Kwong skated just a single shift for the New York Rangers against the
  Montreal Canadiens that night, but in doing so he became the first player of
  Asian ancestry to compete in the NHL.
  
  "I was nervous enough just being called up to the Rangers, but the hype and the
  newspaper stories about me being the first Chinese player made it even tougher,"
  Kwong recalled from his home in rural Alberta, Canada.
  
  "I was playing for the New York Rovers in the old Eastern Hockey League and late
  in the season the Rangers called me up along with another fellow. It was the
  moment every hockey player waits for. I sat at the end of the bench all through
  the first period and didn't get on the ice. Same thing in the second period.
  Just waiting and waiting for my chance. Finally, late in the third period, the
  coach tapped me on the shoulder.
  
  "I was on the ice for maybe 60 seconds. That was it. My entire NHL career lasted
  a whole minute."
  
  Montreal won the game 3-2 and Kwong was reassigned to the Rovers the next day.
  He scored 33 goals and 87 points in 65 games in the Eastern League, but never
  got another promotion to the NHL.
  
  "I tried to not let it bother me, but it did," Kwong said. "I could see the
  writing on the wall. I figured I wouldn't get another chance, so after the
  season I signed with the Valleyview Braves in the Quebec Senior Hockey League. I
  got $5 for every point I scored, along with a good job at a liquor plant. It was
  the best time I ever had in hockey."
  
  Kwong's amateur career was as unlikely as his NHL debut. As a boy he listened to
  radio broadcasts of games in an apartment above the family's grocery store and
  dreamed of one day playing in the NHL.
  
  His father, who left China to work on the Canadian railroad in 1885, died when
  Larry was five so it was left to his mother, who was also born in China, to
  raise their 14 children.
  
  Larry excelled at all sports, but hockey was his first love. In 1941, when he
  was 18, the Trail Smoke Eaters invited him to their tryout camp. He made the
  team, but was refused a job at the town's giant lead smelter because he was
  Chinese.
  
  "All the other players worked there, but I couldn't. It was wartime, and there
  was quite a bit of racism against Asians in those days," he said. "The team got
  me a job as a bellhop at a local hotel. It was great, because I got to eat at
  the restaurant for free. It was an important time for me because it was my first
  real experience away from my home and family."
  
  In 1944 Kwong enlisted in the Canadian Army and earned all-star honours in the
  Alberta Military Hockey League. After attending the New York Rangers training
  camp in 1946 he was offered a contract with their Eastern League farm club.
  According to a Canadian Press dispatch on October 22, 1946: "Kwong became the
  first Chinese to perform in professional hockey in the United States when he
  took to the ice in the EHL's season-opening game against the Boston Olympics."
  
  Being in the media spotlight was something Kwong had to contend with for the
  rest of his career. When he arrived in New York, one story was headlined: "China
  Clipper Kwong: Hockey's Only Orientalist." Another opened with the line: "China,
  mystic land of shuffling feet and pigtails ..."
  
  The team's PR man dubbed Larry "the tiny Chinese puckster." After going to
  Quebec he was known as "le petit chinois" (the little Chinaman), but by then
  he'd gotten used to it.
  
  Kwong averaged better than a point per game in his rookie season in Quebec, and
  in 1950-51 he was named the league's most valuable player. After seven full
  seasons with the Braves he played one year with Troy, New York, in the
  International Hockey League before moving to England to star with the Nottingham
  Panthers in the British Hockey League, where he scored 55 goals in 55 games in
  1957-58.
  
  More than five decades removed from his history-making NHL debut, Kwong has a
  stack a scrapbooks and a lifetime of memories, but little else to show for his
  long career on the ice.
  
  Only a handful of players of Asian descent have followed in his footsteps -
  South Korea-born Jim Paek won a Stanley Cup with Pittsburgh in 1992, and Paul
  Kariya and Richard Park starred in last year's playoffs for Anaheim and
  Minnesota respectively - but that's sure to change as hockey becomes more global
  and new leagues create more opportunities for players of all ethnic backgrounds.
  
  But no matter how many skate to greatness in the future, Larry Kwong, the son of
  an immigrant railroad worker, will always be the first.
  
  And that will always be something to cherish.
  

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