CORNER Training For the Olympics

The talk in the dressing room was about the recent passing of the “China Clipper” and when I discovered they were talking about Larry Kwong, who was the first Chinese Canadian to play in the NHL (for a one minute shift as a New York Ranger) I was somewhat upset. Upset that an important NHL(?) player, the China Clipper had passed away and upset that an important person in my life, the real China Clipper, Normy Kwong, had passed away two years ago and I had not heard.

To me he was someone from my east end Calgary neighbourhood who had made a huge mark in professional sports and then remained in the same neighbourhood he grew up in, and when I heard the news that Normy Kwong had passed away I was truly saddened.

When I was growing up in the 1960’s, the Kwong family had been a part of everyday life in our neighbourhood of Bridgeland-Riverside simply because of their business holdings. The Riverside Grocery was next to “Normy Kwong’s” Holiday Cleaners and the whole neighbourhood patronized both, one to get fresh fruit, vegetables and groceries and one to dry-clean any stains from fresh fruit, vegetables and groceries.

The kids in the neighbourhood knew that he had been a professional football player and I suppose we all thought that every neighbourhood had an ex CFL fullback who did our dry cleaning, but it wasn’t until a few years later that I learned what a magnificent fullback he had been.

He was not as big as you would think an ex-football player would be, but despite his small physical size he could carry the old pigskin and he carried the ball for 9,022 yards with an average of over five yards a carry. No wonder he won accolades and awards along with four Grey Cups for his athletic achievements. But perhaps his greatest achievement was that he was the first Chinese-Canadian to play in the Canadian Football League.

From my point of view as a born and raised Calgarian and Stampeders fan the only flaw in Normy

Kwong’s All-Star Hall of Fame CFL career was when he played for the Edmonton Eskimos, and sadly won three Grey Cups. Ask any Stampeders’ fan and they will probably feel the same way about any

Calgarian playing on an Edmonton team . . . any Edmonton team!

After football, the “China Clipper” became a successful Calgary businessman and eventually became a major shareholder in a NHL hockey team, the

NHL’s Calgary Flames, which moved from Atlanta a year earlier. I thought it was pretty cool that someone I knew from our Bridgeland community could be a part owner of a professional hockey team that played just a few blocks away from the hood in the old Calgary Corral. Talk about keeping it close to home.

He was regular folk and when I met him once at a Flames game I was absolutely stunned when he remembered and called me by my nickname, Bushy. The ability to remember names and faces would be an asset later in his life when he began to be involved in politics and when he ran for MLA in the old neighbourhood riding he narrowly lost to an incumbent.

A few years later he began to receive the many honors he deserved. He was inducted in to the Order of Canada and for many years was Alberta’s Lieutenant-Governer and received many medals of merit which is very cool for a kid from the east end of Calgary.

The guys in the dressing room are probably tired of me bragging about the real China Clipper, but he was someone from my neighbourhood who the entire neighbourhood looked up to. Rest in peace both of you China Clippers.