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Thomas Dunderdale

NHL, the National Hockey League is a premier professional North American Sports League played in indoor stadiums. It is divided into two conferences, each comprising of three divisions of ice hockey teams. The league was established in 1917 in Montreal, Quebec and it is composed of 30 teams out of which 24 teams based in U.S. and 6 in Canada. They have a regular season and playoffs leading to the Stanley Cup, which is the NHL Championship final.

Thomas Dunderdale was born on 6 May 1887 in Benella, Australia. He had played in 17 professional seasons from 1906 to 1924. He is the first Australian-born player to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. His parents, who had earlier moved from England, settled in Ottawa in 1904 where he played his first organized hockey while enrolled at Waller Street School. He moved on to the west and joined the Manitoba Pro League in 1906 while attending business college in Winnipeg and stayed in that league until 1909 when he returned east, this time to suit up for the Montreal Shamrocks.

He went west again in 1911, this time for good, when he signed on with the Victoria Aristocrats of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association. He has made an immediate impression out west, scoring 24 goals in a 15-game schedule. The following year, he led the league in scoring with 24 goals and recorded his third straight 24-goal season in 1913-14. He was named to the PCHA, Pacific Coast Hockey Association First All-Star Team on six occasions before retiring in 1924 with a career total of 194 goals in 241 regular season games.

Thomas Dunderdale was noted as a deft stick handler and fast skater and turned to coaching and managing teams in Los Angeles, Edmonton, and Winnipeg when his playing days were over. Unfortunately, he died on 15 December 1960. Later he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in the year 1974.

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