John Thomson's I Didn't Know That!

The CBC National did a feature this week on Vernon’s Larry Kwong, the first Asian player to ever play hockey in the NHL with the New York Rangers. I remember immediately that I had done a piece in my column on Larry a number of years ago.

The CBC was honouring the Canadian hockey star for just turning 100 years old.

The family owned a store in Vernon started by his father. Larry went on to play hockey in a number of cities.

Kwong powered the Vernon Hydrophones to the midget hockey championship of BC in 1939 and then to the provincial juvenile title in 1941.

As an 18-year-old, Kwong jumped the junior ranks to play senior hockey for the Trail Smoke Eaters, who had won the 1939 World Ice Hockey Championships. In Trail, he was denied a job working with his teammates at the smelter because of his Chinese heritage.

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.

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. Later that year, Lester Patrick scouted Kwong and was impressed, signing him for the New York Rovers, a farm team of the New York Rangers.] Kwong scored a goal in his debut for the Rovers against the Boston Olympics in Boston on October 27, 1946 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.

Kwong, then called the China Clipper, had a long career in Sr. hockey in Quebec. They didn’t get paid in those days, they got jobs. Nine years there and five in the AHL and two years in England. He was paid a wage in this part of his life.

He then came home to manage the store with his brother Jack.  It was called FoodVale Supermarket.

He hasn’t been honoured by the NHL. Larry now lives in Calgary.

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I have had lots of emails on the old Swiss Chalet site at Burtch and Highway 97N. It looks great with the big change being done by Norson Contractors. This contractor does some beautiful work in this town. Classy stuff. Nobody seems to be talking on this one at the moment although I believe it will be connected to food stuff and a new location for this business.

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Travel Alberta are running some new TV commercials on Global and they are very well done as they seek out tourists from B.C. to go to Alberta and have a holiday. The music is fabulous and produced well.

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I recommend that you take the family for a drive one of these weekends before the weather changes. Just drive around the area and see all the houses and buildings that are being constructed in this part of the valley. There are some giant houses being constructed for the founder of Lululemon and another monster for the president of Rexall Drugs and owner of the Edmonton Oilers of the NHL.  Daryl Katz has a lot of property here.

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I was watching the news on Global last week and they had asked this question of six of the major chefs in the market. “If you could only have one spice to use in your cooking which one would you choose?”

All of them answered, “salt.”

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Are you looking for a resort to buy and have $15 million just waiting to invest?  You should know that the Lake Okanagan Resort is for sale.

I was the first one to stage a convention and many meetings there. At the time they were still working on everything when we went out there for the kickoff to the first major resort built in years. We had their attention and the kitchen staff accommodated everything we wanted in food. It was quite exciting.

Everything went well for Joe Reisek and his partners from Edmonton. They all came here every year to stage their own tennis tournament and decided over one of their stays they would build their own resort and make it tennis friendly. Some the first things to be built were three tennis courts. One of them was the championship court with bleachers and lights.

Now there is a 158 slip marina, nine hole golf course and 217 rooms which were totally upgraded in 2011.

The property is owned by Northwynd Resort Properties Ltd of Calgary. The realtor is Sotheby’s International Realty Canada.

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I get these news releases all the time from one of the most successful hotel chains in the world, Relais & Châteaux.  It all came about because three developers had moved into the Peachland area and they were about to create this resort second to none in the country. But something happened that, at the time, was mysterious in some ways because all of a sudden they were gone and there were a few bills still to be paid.

The last year the partners came up for air and things were all right again. A friend of mine got me some new information and here they were, ready to build. I made arrangements for two interviews and they were no shows. I don’t have a clue what the developers are doing now with this project.

I must say that over the years that development drew so much email and it wasn’t always pleasant.

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I talked to Mark Consiglio, the developer behind the Kelowna Mountain Resort, about how things were going at the site. He reported that there is still a lot to be done and the workers are doing their thing during the days.  He is opened to the public on weekends. I talked to him last Friday and he said business for the previous weekend had been just under 2,000 people. He is a man with a dream and vision of what he has to do and he never stops working toward those goals.

I have watched this man for years.  Mark is out there on the tight rope all the time but he makes it work. It is never easy and it never will be with this dreamer who can see it all.

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The news just came out as Burger King announced their new hamburger. It’s a burger with four large fries on the burger instead of all that other junk. A sad blow for bacon.

I remember the first time I ever ate a French fried sandwich. It was at BMO field in Toronto. The concessions make a sandwich on white fluffy bread and butter and fill it with French fries. I of course couldn’t ever eat another one but that one was before I had health problems and it was quite good even if it wasn’t very healthy.