Harry Mummery: Big Mum

Harry "Mum" Mummery was a well travelled hockey player. He was a regular fixture on the back line of the Quebec Bulldogs in the NHA from 1912 through 1917, but then joined the Montreal Canadiens for that league's final season. When the league reformed as the NHL, Mummery moved on to the Toronto Arenas. Over the course of the next 6 NHL seasons, the likeable man they called "Mum" played for Toronto, back to Quebec, back to Montreal, and then on to Hamilton. He ended his career with one final season in Saskatoon.

Why was Mummery moved so often? Perhaps the teams did not want to pay his food bill. Teams would buy meals, but Mummery taxed the budget all by himself. He was a voracious eater. He was said to be able to "down a couple of five-pound steaks, quaff a huge mug of cream, scoff a whole apple pie ... then go right out and play 40+ minutes of hockey!"

Another source suggested Mummery, a noted volunteer firefighter, would often "take five pound steaks in a shovel and cooking them up in a pot bellied stove right in the dressing room. He'd follow that treat up with some apple pie, and wash the whole thing down with a pint of cream."

He could play well, despite his unlikely physique. The defenseman stood at 5'11" and, due to his constant eating grew from a playing weight of 220lbs all the way up to a suspected weight of 265lbs!


Read the full Harry Mummery biography