An excerpt from the Fall 2025 edition of British Columbia History

Vernon Hydrophones, BC Midget champions, 1939. Photo: Larry Kwong family

By Chad Soon

The kid pressing his ears against the family’s radio console was a long way from the National Hockey League action, but the immediacy of Foster Hewitt’s voice made the game seem close at hand. [1]

A forgotten hero

Like the radio waves that first inspired Larry Kwong, the story of his giant leap from an Okanagan Chinatown to the top of the hockey world in the 1940s has almost faded into the ether. Kwong’s legend, like much of Chinese Canadian history, has been unsung. For legions of Chinese Canadians, though, Kwong was a folk hero for reaching levels of success that were unheard of.

Chasing a dream

It was early in the Great Depression when little Larry Kwong took his first strides on a makeshift rink in Vernon’s Chinatown. [2] British Columbia was a hockey hinterland in the 1930s. The Depression would come and go without anyone playing their way out of the province to the big league.

Finances were another constraint. Convincing his mother, a widow with fifteen children, to buy him hockey skates was a tall order. “I really cried for new ones,” said Kwong. “The family probably suffered because of my skates. I don’t know how my mother got the money.” [3]

Known as the China Clipper by age 15, he carried the Vernon Hydrophones to a provincial championship in 1939—a victory credited with putting the city on the hockey map. [4]

Kwong had to battle his own feelings of inferiority as a racialized person: “For me, in those days, ‘Canadian’ meant White people.” [5] The young athlete had cultural differences to navigate in Chinatown as well. As Kwong explained to a reporter in 1947, “The Chinese don’t believe a young man should play a game for a living. They used to tell me that a young man should do more serious things.” [6]

To continue chasing pucks, Kwong would have to sell his mother on “Canada’s game.” She attended one of his games at the Civic Arena and was horrified by the roughness. [7] In desperation, Larry made a tearful promise: “I’m going to play hockey to make enough money to build you a home.” [8] With that, Loo Ying Tow reluctantly gave her blessing.

Exclusion

Kwong’s life was circumscribed by discrimination. He was two weeks old when the Canadian government passed its Chinese Exclusion Act in 1923. Larry’s Chinese-born sister-in-law, Sue, was deported. [9]

As a youth, Larry felt the sting of being refused a haircut because of his Chinese hair. At 16 he was barred from entering the United States with his team because of that country’s Chinese Exclusion Act. Though born in Canada, he had to carry a card identifying him as a non-citizen. Disenfranchisement meant that professions like law, accounting, pharmacy, engineering, and medicine were closed. Most in Vernon’s Chinese community were farmers. In hockey, however, he saw nothing in the rule book that specifically excluded people like him.

Gaining a following

Kwong jumped at 18 to the Trail Smoke Eaters, but was denied a job with his teammates because of the smelter’s no-Chinese policy. In 1942 he joined the Nanaimo Clippers, and his debut “attracted four or five hundred of his countrymen” to the 1,800-seat Civic Arena. [10] That Kwong and his fans were foreigners was the assumption. We can infer what it meant to those Chinese Canadians to see Kwong represent the home team during those exclusionary times. No reporter asked the question.

Kwong then starred for the top team in Vancouver, where again he reportedly “had his own gallery of Chinese.” [11] Being the centre of attention went against “the whole Chinese upbringing—that when you’re out in public, just be seen and not heard.” [12] Kwong knew his boldness came with risks. “Ever since I was a Midget, there has always been a player or two trying to cut off my head just because I am Chinese,” he told a Vancouver reporter. “And the bigger the league the bigger the axe they use!” [13]

Before the winter was out, Kwong was drafted into the army to serve his country—a country that still enforced blanket racism against Chinese Canadians.

While Larry was in the army, the Toronto Maple Leafs invited Chinese Canadian brothers Bill, Albert, and George Chin to their 1944 training camp. Leafs president Ed Bickle assured the media that the Chins were “strictly box office,” there as a novelty to sell tickets. [14]

After the war, Kwong’s difference was seen as an asset by the New York Rangers. In 1946 Kwong was invited to their tryouts in Winnipeg. Ranger publicist Stan Saplin wired manager Frank Boucher from New York, “Bring him whether he can play hockey or not.” [15] Saplin knew that Kwong would be “a great drawing card” in the Big Apple, even for the Rangers’ minor league team, the New York Rovers. On September 23, Larry signed to play for the farm club, knowing he would be one call away from the NHL. The Vancouver Sun reported that the China Clipper had “moved within scoring distance of his main goal.” [16] It was a rare piece of good news featuring a Chinese Canadian. The few other stories about the Chinese community were mostly crime-related—a long established theme in North American dailies.

After a war in which more than 600 Chinese Canadians, including Kwong, had served, little had changed on the home front. [17] The Chinese Exclusion Act was still in place. Voting rights were still withheld. So, for readers of Chinese descent, seeing that Larry Kwong was on the verge of realizing his Canadian dream would have been something to cheer about.

Larry Kwong’s C.I.45 certificate, issued shortly after his first birthday. Photo: Larry Kwong family

King Kwong

In New York, Saplin coined an attention-grabbing nickname for Larry. King Kwong was a smash hit at the box office. Kwong was getting $100 a week, while the Rovers were breaking attendance records at Madison Square Garden. [18]

“Larry is the hero of increasing hordes of proud Chinese who swarm into the Gardens each week,” reported one paper, evoking the Yellow Peril. [19]

News stories about Kwong could feature racist jokes.

A Toronto scribe wrote: “Few Chinese players have gone far in hockey. Too often, when the gong rings to start the game, they think it’s music”; and “Possibly, Chinese boys work too hard in laundries. They think combination play refers to washing underwear.” [20]

Kwong played through the slurs. “You get used to it. They call you ‘Chinaman’ or ‘chink’ or something like that. You take it for granted that the opponent players or fans would call you that.” [21]

Busting stereotypes

Kwong was the opposite of weak, meek, and inscrutable—myths perpetuated in mainstream media in the absence of real voices like Kwong’s. In getting to know Kwong, sportswriters discovered someone who was “popular with his teammates and Canadian to the core.” [22] He was “the big gun” who played “a tough, aggressive game,” while also being a “smiling and friendly” human being. [23] The media capital of the world was being forced to reconsider the stereotypes that marginalized and dehumanized Asians.

November 17, 1946, was declared Larry Kwong Day at Madison Square Garden. [24] The hero was presented with the Key to New York’s Chinatown. Through hockey, Kwong hoped to open doors for the community too. “It would help to make our Chinese people better known and more capable of being successful in lines of business other than the laundry and restaurant,” Larry told journalist Red Fisher. “I have the greatest appreciation and admiration for the Chinese who follow these trades or professions, but I maintain that some of us can start out in fields not yet touched by Chinese people.” [25]

Larry Kwong receiving the Key to New York’s Chinatown from unofficial mayor Shavey Lee, and Lily Pon and May Dong at Madison Square Garden, November 17, 1946. Photo: Larry Kwong family

On the verge of history

In January 1947, Kwong’s sensational play prompted rumours he would be promoted to the NHL, but the Rangers held him back. [26] That summer Kwong made good on his promise to build his mom a new house.

King Kwong then had a monster season with the Rovers. Wowing the crowds with his “magnificent stick handling” and trademark “whirlwind style,” Kwong scored more points (86 in 65 games) than any Rover had in nearly a decade. [27] Finally, late in the season, Larry got the call of his dreams. Rover coach Fred Metcalfe told him, “You should’ve been up there a long time ago.” [28]

On March 13, 1948, newspapers across the continent announced that a racial barrier was coming down in hockey.

In the Montreal Forum, Kwong pulled on a New York Rangers sweater and sat expectantly on the visitors’ bench. As time wound down in the game, coach Frank Boucher gave Kwong his first and last shift in the NHL. Kwong’s historic moment was turned into another act of exclusion. Many years later, Kwong still asked, “How can you prove yourself when you get one minute on the ice?” [29]

The obvious answer is that the Rangers didn’t want Kwong to prove himself. “The Rangers got what they wanted,” admitted their former PR director John Halligan in 2008. “They got noticed!” [30]

“I watched Larry star for the New York Rangers farm team, the NY Rovers, for two years,” stated journalist and broadcaster Stan Fischler. “He was super. He got the rawest of all raw deals from the Blueshirts. Only one shift at the Forum; end of debut, end of NHL career. A total, unforgivable disgrace.” [31]

Hockey ambassador

Feeling snubbed, the 25-year-old moved to a rival team in the Quebec Senior Hockey League. Kwong was not giving up on the NHL. The Quebec League was a proving ground for many up-and-comers. Competing against future Hall-of-Famers Jean Béliveau, Dickie Moore, and Jacques Plante, Kwong was named the league’s most valuable player in 1951 and carried his team to the Canadian title. [32]

“Larry was a heck of a hockey player,” Dickie Moore recalled in 2013. “He was a good skater, a good puck handler. He could score goals. What more do they want?” [33]

In 1957, at the age of 34, Kwong let go of his NHL dream,  setting off across the Atlantic with his hockey gear in search of new adventures. Kwong had pushed his sport and his society to be more inclusive. That year, a Chinese Canadian, Douglas Jung, was elected as a member of Parliament for the first time. The next year, another racial barrier came down in the NHL as 22-year-old Willie O’Ree became the league’s first Black player.

Kwong landed in Switzerland where, as a player- coach, he helped to develop and popularize the game in Europe. He was received as a gift from the hockey gods. “Le joueur le plus spectaculaire que l’on puisse rêver” (The most spectacular player you could dream of) was a Chinese Canadian. [34] The CEO of the Swiss Ice Hockey Federation, Patrick Bloch, recognized Larry as “a great ambassador and builder of hockey.” [35]

Larry Kwong on the November 1958 cover of Chinatown News, the Chinese-Canadian news magazine. Photo: Larry Kwong family

Back in the game

Just as Chinese faces are absent from the historical record, such as in the famous photo of the Last Spike, so too have players of colour been left out of hockey’s narratives. Following his giant strides onto Forum ice, Larry Kwong lived for another 70 years but did not hear from the NHL again. But we can still tune in to the distant echoes of Kwong’s legions of fans cheering for a change in the game. We can retrace the trails Kwong blazed from the Okanagan across many leagues. For Canada to move forward as a multicultural society and for hockey to grow as a world sport, what’s needed are dive rse stories. Those have often been sidelined. After everything, it’s not too late to put Larry Kwong back in the game where he belongs. •

“A great drawing card” with the New York Rovers. Photo: Larry Kwong family

Endnotes

1. Larry Kwong, interview with the author, March 28, 2009.
2. Kwong, interview.
3. Kwong, interview.
4. “Hydrophones Gain Wide Renown in Five-Year History,” Vernon News, April 17, 1941, p. 4.
5. Kwong, interview.
6. W.C. Heinz, “Rangers Eye Chinese Player,” New York Sun, Jan. 16, 1947.
7. Kwong, interview.
8. Wes Miron and Chester Sit, directors, The Shift: The Story of the China Clipper [film], Dynastic Entertainment, 2013.
9. Kwong, interview.
10. Jack Patterson, “Sport Rays: It’s a War Job,” Vancouver Sun, Nov. 2, 1942, p. 11.
11. Duke McLeod, “Martel Forces Deadlock; Sutherland in Navy Goal,” Vancouver Sun, Nov. 23, 1943, p. 10.
12. Kwong, interview.
13. Kwong, quoted in Alf Cottrell, “On the Sunbeam,” Vancouver Sun, Dec. 29, 1943, p. 11.
14. Andy Lytle, “Speaking on Sports,” Toronto Daily Star, Oct. 7, 1944, p. 10.
15. W.C. Heinz, “Rangers Eye Chinese Player,” New York Sun, Jan. 16, 1947.
16. “Larry Kwong Signs with N.Y. Rovers,” Vancouver Sun, Sept. 24, 1946, p. 6.
17. “Chinese Canadians,” Veterans Affairs Canada website, veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/people-and-stories/chinese-canadians.
18. Madison Square Garden Corporation and Lawrence Kwong, Articles of Agreement [Contract], Sept. 23, 1946, Larry Kwong collection; “Rovers Wallop Boston, 6–1, Before Record 15,542 Fans,” New York Daily Mirror, Jan. 13, 1947, p. 24.
19. “Chinese Icer Is N.Y. Hero,” Vancouver Daily Province, Feb. 7, 1947, p. 15.
20. Newton Kendall, “The Sideliner,” Toronto Evening Telegram, March 13, 1947.
21. Kwong, interview.
22. Jim Becker, “Charlie Kwong, Only Chinese Hockey Player, Is ‘Dinghao,’” Berkshire Eagle, Jan. 3, 1947, p. 15.
23. William J. Briordy, “Rovers Set Back Baltimore, 6 to 1”; “Chinese Icer is N.Y. Hero”; Al Colletti, “Larry Has Solid Hockey Following,” CP, Feb. 4, 1947.
24. Madison Square Garden Corporation, Press Release, Nov. 16, 1946, Larry Kwong collection.
25. Red Fisher, “Chinese in Hockey,” Montreal Forum Sports Magazine, 1948.
26. “Gung ho,” Toronto Star, Jan. 20, 1947, p. 10.
27. Sam B. Gunst, “Roving with the Rovers,” Amateur Hockey [Game Program], Mar. 14, 1948; Red Fisher, “Chinese in Hockey.”
28. Kwong, interview.
29. Kenda Gee and Tom Radford (directors), Lost Years: A People’s Struggle for Justice [film], Lost Years Productions, 2011.
30. John Halligan, “All Around the Rink with the Rangers,” Blueshirt Bulletin, March 2008.
31. Stan Fischler [@StanFischler], X [post], Oct. 13, 2024, https://x.com/StanFischler/status/1845456329135075542.
32. Charlie Halpin, “Braves Take 3-1 Lead Trouncing Royals 7-1,” Montreal Gazette, Mar. 14, 1951, p. 20; Jim Bastable, “Valleyfield Braves Capture Alexander Cup,” Ottawa Citizen, May 14, 1951, p. 23.
33. David Davis, “A Hockey Pioneer’s Moment,” New York Times, Feb. 20, 2013, p. B11.
34. “Encore un Grand Match avant la Fermeture de la Patinoire,” Journal du Jura, March 14, 1959, p. 2.
35. Patrick Bloch, Letter to the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame, Oct. 21, 2022.

Chad Soon is a fourth-generation Canadian of Chinese and British descent who teaches in Vernon on the traditional and unceded lands of the syilx Okanagan people. Soon enjoys exploring Indigenous and Canadian heritage with his students, and he serves on the executive boards of the Okanagan Historical Society (Vernon Branch) and the BC Historical Federation. Soon published The Longest Shot: How Larry Kwong Changed the Face of Hockey in 2024.