Bill, Abe and George Chin in Toronto Maple Leafs jerseys.Courtesy of the Chin family/Handout
Three hockey-playing Chin brothers created a sensation in 1944 when they skated with the Toronto Maple Leafs at training camp.
The Chins gained notice earlier in the year when Hugh Fullerton Jr. included mention of the trio in his syndicated sports column, which appeared in hundreds of newspapers across the continent.
The brothers played on the same forward line for their hometown Ontario village of Lucknow, where their scoring prowess attracted hockey fans by the thousands from the surrounding countryside.
After games, the brothers signed autographs and held court in the family’s restaurant on Lucknow’s main street. The brothers and their friends played ball hockey in the restaurant’s basement.
In the fall of 1944, the brothers were invited to play exhibition games with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Newspapers across the country published photographs of the smiling trio. The youngest and last survivor of the three, George Chin, who was just 15 at the time, has died, at the age of 94.
None of the Chin brothers made the National Hockey League. Only George, the tallest and heaviest of the trio at 5-foot-9, 175-pounds, would go on to play professional hockey.
Teams with the fast-skating Mr. Chin on the roster always seemed to be in contention. He won regional championships with his hometown team, as well as two International Hockey League titles with two different teams, two national collegiate championships in the United States and a Petroleum Hockey League title after moving to Calgary. In Britain, his professional Nottingham Panthers finished runners-up for the national championship.
His success came despite enduring racist comments from rivals on the ice and spectators in the stands. Newspapers described his hockey stick as a chop stick, while mocking his father’s name for rhyming with that of Charlie Chan, the fictional detective.
“When we played in places like Goderich, Kincardine and Hanover, we heard the occasional racial taunt,” Mr. Chin told hockey historian Kevin Shea in 2016. “We just shrugged it off and I tried to score another goal to beat them.”
He heard barbs even in his final season as a player in Calgary. “Good morning to everyone,” wrote sports columnist Tom Moore in The Albertan in 1957, “especially to George Chin of Adderson Hustlers, whose patience and unruffled good humour during a weekend hockey game at Okotoks proved him to be a much better Canadian than the minority group of ill-mannered fans who continually made him a target for insulting remarks about his Chinese ancestry.”
George Edward Chin was born on July 28, 1929, in Lucknow, Ont., one of 11 boys and three girls born to Rose (née Lee Hoo) and Lim Kee (Charles) Chin, a restaurant proprietor. Both parents were immigrants from China.
Four of the older Chin boys served in the Canadian forces during the Second World War with three of them posted overseas.
With George on left wing, Bill at right wing and Albert at centre, their juvenile team dominated all others. Even rival hockey teams touted the Chin brothers as an attraction.
George Chin led the Michigan Wolverines to National Collegiate Athletic Association championships in 1952 and 1953, and was named an All-American both seasons. The university’s hockey hall of fame inducted him in 1977.Courtesy of the Chin family/Handout
“The only Chinese line in hockey is responsible for 90 per cent of the goals scored by the Lucknow Maple Leafs,” stated a 1944 advertisement in the Owen Sound Sun Times, which urged fans to see the “scintillating play and puck-passing” of the Chin brothers, “potential NHL stars.”
In May, 1944, a wire story reported the trio had signed with the Detroit Red Wings. As it turned out, the trio instead wound up at the Toronto Maple Leafs training camp. The three were the youngest and smallest of the invitees. Bill was 17, Albert 16 and George 15.
They played in exhibition games in which the Leafs players were divided into Blue and White squads. The Chins played on a line for the White team under the coaching of Squib Walker, the team’s chief scout. A packed rink in Owen Sound, Ont., crowded to see the first game, during which the brothers “drew much applause for their work in major company,” The Globe reported. George Chin recorded an assist in a losing cause. At St. Catharines, Ont., the “fans greeted each appearance of the Chin line with applause,” reported the Toronto Star. At Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, the brothers “had every possible vocal encouragement,” the Windsor Star noted, adjudging George the best of the trio.
The young forward spent the 1944-45 season playing for his hometown team, memorably scoring all of Lucknow’s goals in a 12-6 drubbing of Kincardine. The performance generated a small item in the Toronto Star suggesting Leafs coach Hap Day might want to call up the youngster. Mr. Chin then scored six goals in his next game.
In 1948, the three brothers were skating for the Lucknow Sepoys, luring 2,000 fans to the Waterloo Arena for a showdown against an intermediate team from the township of Wellesley, Ont.
“The Chin line of Lucknow was the big attraction and all three played smart hockey,” the Kitchener-Waterloo Record newspaper reported. “Passing and stickhandling featured their game as they are too small to hand out bodychecks.”
Mr. Chin missed more than two months of the 1946-47 season with a broken wrist suffered while playing for the Windsor Spitfires of the amateur International Hockey League. He returned to help the team through the playoffs, though another injury caused him to miss the team’s final series during which it won the Turner Cup. He later skated for the Chatham Maroons team which won the championship trophy in 1950.
That season, Mr. Chin scored a goal in an exhibition game pitting the International all-stars against the NHL’s Red Wings. The professionals won the game by 17-10. About $2,800 was raised to assist injured players.
The University of Michigan offered him a hockey scholarship, and Mr. Chin led the Wolverines to National Collegiate Athletic Association championships in 1952 and 1953. He was named an All-American both seasons. The university’s hockey hall of fame inducted Mr. Chin in 1977.
While skating for the Wolverines, Mr. Chin completed a degree in geology. He later moved to Calgary, where he worked for companies involved in the oil patch.
Mr. Chin died in Calgary on Nov. 28. He leaves the former Coral Kong, his wife of 65 years. He also leaves four daughters, eight grandchildren, a sister and three brothers. He was predeceased by seven brothers and two sisters.
While none of the Chin siblings made the NHL, one of the Lucknow boys who played ball hockey in the restaurant basement did. That boy went on to play for both the Maple Leafs and the Red Wings but is best known for scoring the goal that won the 1972 Summit Series for Canada over the Soviet Union. A young Paul Henderson got hand-me-down equipment from the Chin family, which allowed him to throw away the department store catalogues he had been using as shinpads.
“I helped them peel potatoes,” Mr. Henderson said recently. “We had to do that before we could go downstairs to play ball hockey.”