While in Canada a hat trick refers to three goals by a single player in a hockey game.
A “hat trick” means any accomplishment of three and comes from the English game of cricket.
When a bowler retired three consecutive batsmen with three consecutive balls, he was rewarded with a hat.
It became hockey jargon during a time when most spectators wore hats, which they tossed onto the rink as a celebration of three goals by one player.
During the 1930s and 1940s a local Toronto haberdasher gave any Maple Leaf hockey player a custom-made hat if he scored three consecutive goals.
