Harold "Mum" Mummery (August 25, 1889 – December 9, 1945) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

defenceman. Mummery played professionally from 1911 until 1923, including six seasons in the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

(NHL) for the

Toronto Arenas The Toronto Arenas or Torontos were a professional men's ice hockey team that played in the first two seasons of the National Hockey League (NHL). It was operated by the owner of the Mutual Street Arena, Arena Gardens, the Toronto Arena Company. ...

Quebec Bulldogs The Quebec Bulldogs (french: Bulldogs de Québec) were a men's senior-level ice hockey team based in Quebec City. The team was officially known as the Quebec Hockey Club (french: Club de hockey de Québec), and later as the Quebec Athletic Club ...

Montreal Canadiens The Montreal CanadiensEven in English, the French spelling is always used instead of ''Canadians''. The French spelling of ''Montréal'' is also sometimes used in the English media. (french: link=no, Les Canadiens de Montréal), officially ...

and

Hamilton Tigers The Hamilton Tigers were a professional ice hockey team based in Hamilton, Ontario. They competed in the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1920 to 1925. The Tigers were formed by the sale of the Quebec Bulldogs NHL franchise to Hamilton intere ...

. He was a three-time

O'Brien Cup The O'Brien Trophy, or O'Brien Cup, as labelled on the trophy itself, is a retired trophy that was awarded in the National Hockey Association (NHA) and the National Hockey League (NHL) ice hockey leagues of North America from 1910 to 1950. It was ...

champion and a two-time winner of the

Stanley Cup The Stanley Cup (french: La Coupe Stanley) is the championship trophy awarded annually to the National Hockey League (NHL) playoff champion. It is the oldest existing trophy to be awarded to a professional sports franchise in North America, an ...

. At the time of his career, Mummery was the largest player ever in the NHA and NHL, playing at 245 pounds in his NHL years and he was known to eat two steaks before hockey games.Podnieks, p. 609 Mummery appeared in three games as an NHL goaltender in an era when teams didn't dress a backup netminder, making him the skater to have played the most games in net. He suited up as a goaltender twice with Quebec and once with Hamilton.

Playing career

Born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, Mummery moved to

Brandon, Manitoba Brandon () is the second-largest city in the province of Manitoba, Canada. It is located in the southwestern corner of the province on the banks of the Assiniboine River, approximately west of the provincial capital, Winnipeg, and east of the ...

at an early age. He first played hockey at the senior-level for the Brandon Elks in 1907–08. From there he moved to Fort William, Ontario to play a season with the Fort William Forts in the Northern Ontario Hockey League. He returned to the prairies playing for Brandon and Moose Jaw in minor professional leagues. In 1912, Mummery joined the

of the

National Hockey Association The National Hockey Association (NHA), officially the National Hockey Association of Canada Limited, was a professional ice hockey organization with teams in Ontario and Quebec, Canada. It is the direct predecessor of today's National Hockey Lea ...

(NHA). In his rookie season the Bulldogs won the

and successfully defended the Stanley Cup championship. On the Bulldogs he formed a successful defence pairing with

Joe Hall Joseph Hall may refer to: Sports * Joe Hall (American football) (born 1979), American football player * Joe Hall (baseball) (born 1966), American baseball player * Joe Hall (ice hockey) (1881–1919), Canadian ice hockey player * Joe B. Hall (192 ...

."The Sport Realm"
Westwick, Bill. ''Ottawa Journal''. Dec. 11, 1945 (pg. 16). Retrieved 2020-10-23. He played with the Bulldogs until he was traded to the

in 1916. The Canadiens won the O'Brien Cup that season but lost to the

Seattle Metropolitans The Seattle Metropolitans were a professional ice hockey team based in Seattle, Washington, which played in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA) from 1915 to 1924. During their nine seasons, the Metropolitans were the PCHA's most successfu ...

in the Stanley Cup championship. Bulldogs

Before the beginning of the 1917–18 season the NHA ceased operations and the owners formed the

(NHL). The players from the Quebec Bulldogs were dispersed to teams in the new NHL and Mummery was loaned to the Toronto Blueshirts club, now run by the Toronto Arena Company. The club would go on to win the Stanley Cup in a challenge series against the

Vancouver Millionaires The Vancouver Millionaires (later known as the Vancouver Maroons) were a professional ice hockey team that competed in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association and the Western Canada Hockey League between 1911 and 1926. Based in Vancouver, British Col ...

of the PCHA. After the season the Arena company formed the Toronto Arena Hockey Club and Mummery signed for the 1918–19 season. Unfortunately, the Arenas only managed to win five of their games over the course of the 18 game schedule and with poor attendance figures the team officially withdrew from the league on February 20, 1919. In 1919–20 the Quebec Bulldogs returned and joined the NHL making it a four team league once again. The NHL reassigned former Bulldogs players from the NHA, who were now playing in the NHL, back to the team, including Mummery. When the Quebec team was sold at the end of the 1919–20 season and transferred to Hamilton, Mummery was traded to the Montreal Canadiens where he played the 1920–21 NHL season. He was traded back to the Hamilton Tigers before the start of the 1921–22 season, playing parts of two season there before another trade in 1923 sent him to the

Saskatoon Sheiks The Saskatoon Sheiks/Saskatoon Crescents were a professional ice hockey team in the Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL) and Prairie Hockey League (PrHL) from 1921 to 1928. The team played their home games at the Crescent Arena in Saskatoon, S ...

of the

West Coast Hockey League The West Coast Hockey League was a professional minor ice hockey league active in the western United States from 1995 to 2003. The number of teams ranged from six to nine. The teams were located in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nev ...

. He played four games for Saskatoon in 1922–23 and retired. He died in

on December 9, 1945.

Playing style

Harry Mummery was one of the heaviest players of his time, his weight reportedly ranging somewhere in-between 220 and 250 pounds. According to the Canadian sports journalist

Elmer Ferguson Elmer Ferguson (February 25, 1885 – April 26, 1972) was a Canadian sports journalist. Born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Ferguson moved to Montreal in 1910 and became the sports editor of the Montreal Herald in 1913. Ferguson was ...

, who first saw Mummery play at the

Westmount Arena The Montreal Arena, also known as Westmount Arena, was an indoor arena located in Westmount, Quebec, Canada on the corner of St. Catherine Street and Wood Avenue. It was likely one of the first arenas designed expressly for hockey, opening in 18 ...

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

, the big defenceman had a prodigious appetite for food and a particular fondness of large

steak A steak is a thick cut of meat generally sliced across the muscle fibers, sometimes including a bone. It is normally grilled or fried. Steak can be diced, cooked in sauce, such as in steak and kidney pie, or minced and formed into patties, ...

s and

cream Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this process ...

. Ferguson claimed that Mummery had testified to drinking a

quart The quart (symbol: qt) is an English unit of volume equal to a quarter gallon. Three kinds of quarts are currently used: the liquid quart and dry quart of the US customary system and the of the British imperial system. All are roughly equal ...

of cream after every meal, because he figured that it gave him strength."Heavyweight Defence for the Canadiens"
''Toronto World''. December 8, 1916. Retrieved 2021-06-09."Elmer Recalls Steaks and Hats of Harry Mummery!"
''Toronto Daily Star''. December 15, 1945. Retrieved 2021-06-09. Mummery, although not one of the most prominent offensive defenders of his era, still had decent goal scoring upside. During the 1920–21 NHL season he scored 15 goals in 24 games for the Montreal Canadiens, many of them from what Elmer Ferguson referred to as a "one-man-power-play."

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

Goaltender stats

Awards and achievements

championships (1913 with Quebec, & 1918 with Toronto) *

NHA championships (1913 with Quebec & 1917 with Montreal Canadiens) * NHL championship (1918 with Toronto Arenas) *Honoured Member of the

Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame The Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame and Museum is a hall of fame and museum for ice hockey in Manitoba, located on the main level of the Canada Life Centre in downtown Winnipeg. It was established in 1985, when the first honoured members were named an ...

References

Bibliography

Notes

External links

*
Harry Mummery's biography
a

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mummery, Harry 1889 births 1945 deaths American emigrants to Canada Hamilton Tigers (ice hockey) players Ice hockey people from Chicago Ice hockey people from Manitoba Montreal Canadiens (NHA) players Montreal Canadiens players Quebec Bulldogs (NHA) players Quebec Bulldogs players Saskatoon Sheiks players Sportspeople from Brandon, Manitoba Stanley Cup champions Toronto Arenas players Canadian ice hockey defencemen