As the first Thai-born draft pick in NHL history, Alex Kannok Leipert’s life has taken him from the beaches of Thailand to the Canadian prairies and beyond. 

July 20, 2000: A baby boy is born in Nakhon Ratchasima, Northeastern Thailand, to a Canadian father and a Thai mother. Their family’s story began when Saskatchewanian Tim Leipert was traveling the world teaching English and landed in Thailand, a country he fell for as hard as he fell for Jit, his future wife and mother of his three boys.

Holding his firstborn son – Alexander Chulladit Kannok Leipert – in his arms, surrounded by sesame and rice fields, breathtaking Buddhist temples, and dragon fruit growing everywhere, did Tim ever imagine that the boy would one day take to hockey like green papaya to Som Tum Thai? That Alex would become the first Thai-born player to be picked in an NHL draft?

Being Canadian, he may have imagined just that, even though the little family’s life was a world away – over 7,000 miles – from his hometown of Regina in the Canadian prairies. 

Tim and Jit moved from historic Nakhon Ratchasima, the site of several ancient outposts of the Khmer Empire, to the powdery sand beaches of Hua Hin. There they opened an inn on the beach, with a pub downstairs and rooms to rent upstairs. It was paradise, with palm fronds, cerulean blue waters of the Gulf of Thailand, and warm-to-hot temperatures all year round. 

But Saskatchewan was calling, and the Kannok Leiperts answered the call.

From Sesame to Sunflowers

Wait. What? They did what? When Alex was about 5 years old, he and his parents moved from Heaven to earth; Saskatchewan earth, frozen and lying flat under a polar air mass during the winter. Instead of rice and sesame, the local soil yielded mustard and sunflowers. Instead of Buddhist temples, grain elevators rose up into the prairie sky. And the mangoes? Best not to talk about the disparities of tropical fruit between Thailand’s trees and Saskatchewan’s grocery stores.

However, there were compensations to be had, Alex’s schooling, for one. “There’s no middle class in Thailand,” Kannok Leipert said. “School is either really expensive or not good.”

Tim was also back in his hometown with family and friends, while Jit joined the thriving Thai community, where she has “tons of friends” and they host Thai students attending the nearby University of Regina.

And there was hockey, a Canadian obsession and its national sport. Soon after arriving on the prairies, Kannok Leipert’s little feet were laced into skates, and he was off and skating. 

From a very young age, the now 25-year-old knew he was destined for bigger things, hockey-wise. “My grandpa always says that when I was little I said, ‘I am going to be a hockey player and take care of you guys.’”

He worked hard on the ice and off, reading books to motivate him to be his best. When he was 12 or 13, Kannok Leipert read The Secret, a huge bestseller written in 2006 by Rhonda Byrne.

The main gist of the influential book is the Law of Attraction: your thoughts directly shape your reality, meaning positive thoughts attract positive outcomes.

“I began to manifest it and visualize it,” he said of his future hockey career. Soon the defenseman was suited up with Regina Pat Blues U15 AA team, followed by two years with the Regina Pat Canadians. In 2016-17, he and his teammates won the SMAAAHL (Saskatchewan Male Under 18 AAA Hockey League) title.

From the sunny prairies, Kannok Leipert moved to the rainy but glorious Western coast of Canada to play major junior hockey for the Vancouver Giants of the WHL. During parts of five seasons with the Giants, he experienced both the thrill of victory – the team went all the way to Game 7 of the 2019 WHL Finals before losing in overtime – and the agony of defeat, namely the frustration and disappointment of not being able to play for almost two seasons of prime junior hockey. 

“COVID canceled my 19-year-old season,” he said. “In my 20-year-old season I played for two months in a bubble.” He calls that period his biggest challenge so far. What should have been a peak time to show scouts what he could do on the ice and develop his game became a year-plus of watching that precious time slip away.

Besides his family members, including brothers Hunter, 21, and Branson, 15, Alex had someone else in his corner to help him stay the course and keep his focus in difficult times. His grandfather, Brian Leipert, helped him manage the mental aspects of the game. “He taught me about being in the moment, controlling what you can control,” said Kannok Leipert. That advice and more from his grandpa served the player well for his junior years and beyond, as he captained the Giants for his final two years, from 2019 to 2021 – yes, during those tough years of COVID. 

Through it all, Thailand was always there, in the language that swirled in his brain alongside English, in the bowls of green curry and the rice that were always cooking, “from 10 a.m. on, every day.” Thailand, always beckoning him home for a visit or just reminding him of his roots.

Hockey Night in Bangkok

In 2013, 13-year-old Kannok Leipert was in his homeland for a visit, something he and his family did every couple of years when he was growing up. “I’ve been to Thailand seven or eight times,” he said. 

While at a mall, he and his mother ran into the coach of the Thai national hockey team. They spotted the hockey emblem on his clothing. This chance encounter led to him skating with the national team a couple of years later.

“All their rinks are in malls and are mainly designed for figure skating,” he said. “For hockey games they will put up netting to stop flying pucks.”

Hockey is growing in Thailand, currently ranked 51st in the IIHF World Rankings. The nation’s teams have been entered in the World Championship tournaments since 2019 but have not yet participated at any Olympic Games. Currently they sit in seventh place in the Asian Ice Hockey Rankings. The "Big Four" of Kazakhstan, Japan, South Korea, and China consistently lead Asian ice hockey.

One can’t imagine that the Thai National Team doesn’t have eyes on Kannok Leipert and the other pro hockey player with Thai roots, Jonas Siegenthaler, a Swiss national who is a defenseman for the New Jersey Devils. Kannok Leipert has met Sieganthaler, whose mother is Thai, too. 

Might he walk the path of former Griffins assistant coach Jim Paek, the first Korean player to play in the NHL, who, after coaching the Griffins for nine years, from 2005-2014, accepted a position as the director of hockey for the Korea Ice Hockey Association?

Who knows what will happen in the future, but for now Kannok Leipert is holding fast to his dream of skating in the NHL someday. In the meantime, he is riding the high of the Griffins’ “crazy” record-breaking season, while remembering the lessons learned in the peaks and valleys of hockey life.

Fortunately, Unfortunately …Fortunately

There’s a children’s storytelling game called “Fortunately, Unfortunately,” in which participants withdraw a random item from a bag and either advance the main character’s goals or throw obstacles in their way. Life is like that, too, and Kannok Leipert has witnessed this pattern in his hockey career. 

Fortunately: He was selected 161st overall by the Washington Capitals in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft, becoming the first Thai-born player to be drafted in the NHL. In 2019, he and the Giants made it to the WHL Finals.

Unfortunately: COVID.

Fortunately: In 2021, he was picked up by the AHL’s Abbotsford Canucks in a one-year pro contract, then re-signed for a second and third year.

Unfortunately: “In my first three years of pro I watched a lot of hockey, I didn’t play a lot of hockey,” he said. “I would sit out 30 games a year as a healthy scratch.”

Here’s where his grandpa Brian’s mindset coaching really came into play. Kannok Leipert couldn’t control whether or not he played or sat in a suit, watching. But he could control his attitude and answer the question, ‘What can I do today to stay in the lineup?’ He could maintain a stance of gratitude. 

Things took a fortunate swing for the 2024-25 season when the defenseman signed a one-year contract with the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors, where he played 59 games and contributed consistently to the team’s defense. He was playing the game he loved, and a bonus was all that sunshine, which he had missed from … Regina.

“I love the sunlight [in the prairies],” he said. “That sun bouncing off the snow … I’ve gotten a little soft though. In Regina, we could stay inside for recess only if it was minus-25 or colder.”

Now playing for the Griffins after signing a one-year contract for 2025-26, Kannok Leipert has found a warm welcome in the city and on the team, where he is valued for his ability to kill a penalty and protect his teammates physically if need be. “It’s a big thing to be trusted on the PK,” he said of his coaches’ faith in him.

Uncomfortable with the label “enforcer,” Kannok Leipert says “I know I am capable of standing up for my teammates if I have to. I don’t look for it, but I will [fight] if I have to.”

Midseason, the Thai-Canadian has played in 31 contests with the Griffins, only missing one game, with seven points and 33 minutes in the box. “I love it here,” he says. “Everyone plays their role. It’s special to be on a team where everyone pulls their rope in the same direction, and we have great chemistry on and off the ice.”

Part of making himself at home in Grand Rapids is checking out the food scene. “[Dominik] Shine told me to go to the Thai restaurant at the Downtown Market,” he said. He adores the hamburgers at Gin Gins, although he prefers to cook at home, whipping up dishes such as chicken bowls, Thai green curry, and his favorite, Pad Thai, although, “it’s easy to mess up with rice noodles.” 

His culinary efforts no doubt make mom Jit proud as she cheers him on from afar. The Thai woman quickly fell in love with hockey and became “the yelling mom” at her boys’ hockey games. “‘Go! Go! Go!’”

Her grasp of the game is so deep that she can physically be at one son’s game and virtually watch her two other boys compete on different screens. She can proudly watch Alex and his team beat nearly every opponent, peaceful in the knowledge he is playing consistently and well.

One more bonus of her firstborn playing in Grand Rapids? “The Griffins are an hour ahead instead of two hours behind [her time zone],” Kannok Leipert said. “So now she can finally get some sleep.”

Lorilee Craker is the author of 16 books, including Anne of Green Gables, My Daughter and Me, the CBA and ECPA bestseller My Journey to Heaven with Marv Besteman, the Audie Awards nominee Money Secrets of the Amish, and the New York Times bestseller Through the Storm with Lynne Spears. A native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, she lives in a century-old house in Grand Rapids, with her husband, pets, and various international students from around the world. She has loved hockey since becoming a card-carrying member of the Winnipeg Jets Junior Booster Club at age 11.

Photo by Nicolas Carrillo/Griffins