Larry Kwong

Kwong was born in 1923 as the second youngest of 15 children born to Chinese immigrants who had arrived in 1884 for the gold rush in Cherry Creek, British Columbia.[7] His father had two wives and came to Canada in search of gold, but later failed. His father later started farming and then went into the grocery business in Vernon, British Columbia, calling his store Kwong Hing Lung. Larry's Chinese surname was Eng, but decided to take the name of his father's store as the last name in his English name.[8]

Just two weeks after his birth, the government of the Dominion of Canada enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923 which completely prohibited Chinese immigrants from entering Canada.[9] Kwong faced numerous acts of racial discrimination during his youthful years in Vernon, as he recalled being denied service at a barbershop because of his ethnic background.[7]

Kwong had practiced ice hockey on frozen ponds in Vernon and had not played organized hockey until he joined the Vernon Hydrophones when he was 16 years old.[10] He powered the Vernon Hydrophones to the midget hockey championship of BC in 1939 and then to the provincial juvenile title in 1941.[11] As an 18-year-old, Kwong jumped the junior ranks to play senior hockey after a try-out for the elite semi-professional Trail Smoke Eaters, who had won the 1939 World Ice Hockey Championships. In Trail, players who make the roster get good-paying jobs at a local smelter, but Kwong was denied a job working with his teammates at the smelter because of his Chinese heritage. Instead, he was sent to a nearby hotel to work as a bellhop, carrying bags for patrons.[12]

In 1942, the Chicago Black Hawks invited Kwong to training camp, but "the Canadian government refused to process the documentation needed to leave the country".[13]

In 1944, Kwong was drafted into the Canadian Army. Instead of being deployed overseas, he was selected to join "Sugar" Jim Henry and Mac Colville on the Red Deer Wheelers of the Central Alberta Garrison Hockey League. The Wheelers defeated the Calgary Combines (starring two-time NHL scoring champion Sweeney Schriner) in the playoff semi-final, before falling to Calgary Currie Army (whose roster included Hart Trophy winners Max Bentley and Tommy Anderson) in the final series.[14]

After World War II, Kwong returned to Trail and won the provincial senior hockey championship with the Smoke Eaters in 1946. In that BC Final series against the New Westminster Royals, Kwong led the Smokies in scoring (tied with Mike Buckna) and scored the Savage Cup-winning goal.[15]

Later in 1946, Lester Patrick scouted Kwong and was impressed, signing him for the New York Rovers, a farm team of the New York Rangers.[16] Kwong scored a goal in his debut for the Rovers against the Boston Olympics in Boston on October 27, 1946.[17] At Madison Square Garden on November 17, 1946, Shavey Lee presented Kwong with the Keys to New York's Chinatown. Kwong went on to lead the New York Rovers in scoring in 1947–1948 with 86 points in 65 games.

Larry Kwong pictured with the Trail Smoke Eaters

On March 13, 1948, Kwong broke hockey's colour barrier by making his NHL debut with the New York Rangers as the first non-white player in the NHL. He wore number 11, and played against Maurice Richard and the Montreal Canadiens in the Montreal Forum. This event came less than a year after Jackie Robinson shattered the baseball color line in the US. During this game, Kwong waited until late in the third period before seeing the ice for his only shift of the night, in which he tallied no points in what would be his only big-league game.[1][18][19]

Demoted back to the minor league after his debut, Kwong became convinced that he would not get an opportunity to prove himself at the NHL level with the Rangers. Kwong, being the Rovers' top scorer, had watched several other Rover forwards get called to the NHL ahead of him.[20] In the off-season, Kwong accepted a more lucrative offer to play for the Valleyfield Braves of the Quebec Senior Hockey League.

Kwong went on to have a long and successful career in senior leagues in Canada and the United States. Coached by Toe Blake, Kwong was named as an alternate captain of the Valleyfield Braves. In 1951 Kwong won the Vimy Trophy as the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the QSHL. That year, he led the Valleyfield Braves to the league championship and then to the Alexander Cup, the Canadian major senior title. In the following QSHL season (1951–52), Kwong's 38 goals were topped only by Jean Béliveau's 45 tallies. In his nine-year tenure in the Quebec League, competing against future NHL All-Stars such as Béliveau, Jacques Plante, Dickie Moore, Gerry McNeil and Jean-Guy Talbot, Kwong averaged better than a point per game. Béliveau, who later became a Hall of Fame inductee, said: "Larry made his wing men look good because he was a great passer. He was doing what a center man is supposed to do."[8]

A pioneer and ambassador for the game of hockey, Kwong accepted an offer to play and coach hockey in England and, later, in Lausanne, Switzerland, before it even became fashionable to play in Europe. His expected year there turned into a stay of fifteen. "I went there to coach ice hockey and then after six years of coaching, I decided to start teaching tennis as a tennis pro."[1] Kwong spent one season with the Nottingham Panthers in Britain, scoring 55 goals in 55 games, before moving to Switzerland where he led HC Ambrì-Piotta in scoring as player-coach.[21] With this coaching assignment, he became the first person of Chinese descent to coach a professional hockey team.[22] He later coached HC Lugano and HC Lausanne. Kwong also became a tennis coach in Switzerland.

Kwong was married to Audrey Craven (1929–1979) in Nottingham in 1964. The couple had one daughter, Kristina. In 1972 Kwong returned to Canada with his family to run Food-Vale Supermarket (Kwong Hing Lung) with his brother, Jack. In 1989 Kwong married Janine Boyer. He was widowed for a second time in 1999. Retired from the grocery business, he lived in Calgary, Alberta.

Kwong died March 15, 2018 in Calgary.[1][23][24] He was survived by his daughter, Kristina (Dean) Heintz; granddaughters, Samantha and Madison; sisters, Betty Chan and Ina Ng; sisters-in-law, Janet, Irene, and Georgina; and numerous nieces and nephews.[25]

Kwong has been honoured on numerous occasions. Below is a list of select honours:

• List of sports desegregation firsts
• Willie O'Ree, first black player in the NHL, a decade after Larry Kwong broke the colour barrier
• Andong Song, the first Chinese-born hockey player to be drafted by an NHL team (New York Islanders)
• Peter Ing, former NHL goalie
• List of players who played only one game in the NHL

• Lost Years Official Website (Episode 1): http://www.lostyears.ca/episode-one.html
• Barman, Jean. The West Beyond the West: A History of British Columbia (Third Edition). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8020-9495-7.
• Cohen, Russ. 100 Things Rangers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2014. ISBN 9781600789175.
• Greig, Murray. Trail on Ice: A Century of Hockey in the Home of Champions. Trail: City of Trail Archives, 1999. ISBN 0-9690305-3-3.
• Johanson, Paula. King Kwong: Larry Kwong, the China Clipper Who Broke the NHL's Colour Barrier. Neustadt: Five Rivers Publishing, 2015. ISBN 9781927400753.
• Ma, Adrian. How the Chinese Created Canada. Dragon Hill Publishing Ltd., 2010. ISBN 978-1-896124-19-3.
• McKinley, Michael. Hockey: A People's History. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Ltd, 2006. ISBN 978-0-7710-5769-4.
• Mortillaro, Nicole. Hockey Trailblazers. Markham: Scholastic Canada Ltd, 2011. ISBN 978-1-4431-0469-2.
• Poulton, J. Alexander. A History of Hockey in Canada. OverTime Books, 2010. ISBN 978-1-897277-56-0.
• Reid, Ken. One Night Only: Conversations with the NHL's One-Game Wonders. Toronto: ECW Press, 2016. ISBN 9781770412972.
• Wong, David H.T. Escape to Gold Mountain: A Graphic History of the Chinese in North America. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2012. ISBN 9781551524764.
• Zweig, Eric. The Big Book of Hockey for Kids. Markham: Scholastic Canada Ltd, 2013. ISBN 9781443119528.

• Biographical information and career statistics from Hockey-Reference.com, or Legends of Hockey
• The Life & Times of Hockey Hero Larry Kwong
• Larry Kwong beat long odds
• NewYorkRangers.com feature on Kwong's 60th anniversary
• The Longest Shot: Retracing Larry Kwong's Giant Strides
• "Rangers Call Up Chinese Puckster"
• Toe Blake comments on Larry Kwong
• Kwong scores in Garrison Hockey League finals
• A hockey trailblazer emerges from obscurity