Larry Kwong’s National Hockey League career began and ended on the same night. He played a single shift, lasting a minute or so, for the Rangers against the Canadiens at Montreal on March 13, 1948. He scored no goals, had no assists and received no penalties.

Kwong, a 5-foot-6-inch center known as the China Clipper for his speed, played in Quebec and Europe after that season. But when he died on Thursday in Calgary, Alberta, at 94, he was remembered as an N.H.L. pioneer. A Chinese-Canadian born in British Columbia, he was the league’s first player of Asian descent.

The Rangers had discovered Kwong after he played for a Canadian Army hockey team in World War II. They signed him in 1946 for their Rovers farm team, with which they shared the Madison Square Garden ice. The unofficial mayor of Chinatown, Shavey Lee, and two showgirls from the China Doll nightclub in Midtown Manhattan honored him there one night.

The Rangers called Kwong up from the Rovers in March 1948 with only a few games left in their season. But their coach, Frank Boucher, waited until the Montreal game was nearly over before putting Kwong on the ice.