Here’s why hats are thrown onto the ice in celebration of hat tricks and what happens to those thrown by Kraken fans (2024)

The questions flew almost as quickly as the hats did Thursday night following a third consecutive goal by Kraken winger Jordan Eberle.

Why are fans littering the ice with hats? Can they ever get them back? What will the team do with all its free headwear?

Understandable questions all, given this is the first time an NHL hat trick had been recorded by a Kraken or visiting player at Climate Pledge Arena. The term refers to a player scoring three goals in a game — which is enough to usually send hats cascading down in tribute from the stands — but Eberle’s feat was extra special in that it was a “natural hat trick,” three consecutive tallies uninterrupted by a teammate or opponent score.

“It’s obviously an honor; it’s really cool,” Eberle said of his historic feat. “I’ve had a couple, but this one for sure, obviously, to get the first in Kraken history and at this arena is pretty special.”

Eberle has turned the trick — so to speak — on four occasions. But it’s his first “natural” version, which in recent years happens only in about 14% of hat tricks.

“I’m not going to lie, when it went in I definitely thought about it,” Eberle said of his third-period slap-shot goal between the pads of Sabres goalie Dustin Tokarski. “It was a neat moment, and it’s a part of history. So it’s nice to be a part of that.”

A natural hat trick includes three consecutive goals scored over multiple periods — as Eberle’s were — as well as on empty nets with goalies pulled for an extra attacker and during overtimes, but not in shootouts.

It was an even rarer night in the NHL, as the Boston Bruins’ Patrice Bergeron recorded a natural hat trick against Detroit and added a fourth goal that wasn’t consecutive. A four-goal game is less commonly known as a “Texas hat trick,” though origins of the term aren’t really established.

The term hat trick originated in 1850s cricket when bowlers achieving three consecutive wickets — hitting the stakes behind the batter — were awarded hats. Harry Hyland of the Montreal Wanderers recorded the first hat trick in NHL history on Dec. 18, 1917, before the feat was singled out or saluted.

Though there is evidence of the term being used in 1930s NHL newspaper game stories, the Hockey Hall of Fame says the expression took hold when Toronto store owner Sammy Taft began a promotional gimmick of offering free hats to any player scoring three goals in games that involved the hometown Maple Leafs.

The first beneficiary of the offer was Chicago Black Hawks forward Alex Kaleta, who had tried on a fedora in Taft’s shop in January 1946 that he couldn’t afford. Taft told Kaleta he could have the fedora if he scored three goals against the Leafs at Maple Leaf Gardens that night.

Kaleta scored four goals. And though his team still lost 6-5, Kaleta left town with his head covered.

A Montreal shop owner later used the same publicity gimmick, and the hat trick became a permanent fixture in NHL lore. There are accounts of players from a Guelph, Ontario, junior team called the Guelph Biltmore Mad Hatters — with alumni including future Hall of Famers Jean Ratelle, Andy Bathgate, Harry Howell and Rod Gilbert — receiving free headwear from its hat store sponsor for scoring three goals, though the Toronto-based Hall of Fame is sticking for now with the legend of Taft and Kaleta.

Fans quickly began saluting the three-goal game by tossing their hats on the ice — back then, in the 1940s and 1950s, hats were common fashion accessories, and almost everybody in the rink wore them.

The Black Hawks — whose team name before 1986 commonly was written as two words instead of one like it is now — feature prominently in hat-trick lore. The fastest in NHL history was recorded in just 21 seconds by Chicago forward Bill Mosienko in 1952 during a 7-6 win over the New York Rangers.

Jean Beliveau of the Montreal Canadiens scored three consecutive goals in 44 seconds against Boston in a November 1955 game. That feat changed the course of league history, as all three markers came on the same power play with the Bruins killing off a minor penalty.

The NHL quickly changed its rules the following season so that a minor penalty expires as soon as one power-play goal is scored. That rule remains in effect today.

Wayne Gretzky, considered the greatest player of all-time, notched 50 hat tricks in his career including seven of the natural variety. That’s why Eberle’s feat Thursday night is sometimes called a Wayne Gretzky hat trick.

That’s not to be confused with a Gordie Howe hat trick, named after the legendary Red Wings forward who could dish out elbows to the face as often as he scored goals. The tongue-in-cheek honor refers to a player collecting a goal, an assist and a fight in the same game.

Hats aren’t the only things thrown on the ice by fans.

Red Wings faithful throw live and dead octopi on the ice to salute three-goal games, and Nashville Predators fans toss catfish.

Scott Mellanby of the Florida Panthers was credited by his goalie teammate John Vanbiesbrouck with notching a “rat trick” during the 1995-96 season by killing a rat in the dressing room with his stick and scoring two goals that night. When Mellanby scored an actual hat trick that same season, fans littered the ice with plastic rats.

When the Panthers surprisingly advanced to the Stanley Cup Final that spring, plastic rats were tossed for seemingly every goal scored by the team during its playoff run before the league finally banned the practice.

At Climate Pledge Arena, with the Red Wings already having cornered the octopus market — not to mention animal-rights concerns — nobody tosses squid, as they are all too similar. Instead it’s hats, and once they leave a fan’s hands they are never getting them back.

NHL teams traditionally display the hats or give them to charity — though with COVID-19 the sharing of any clothing nowadays tends to be frowned upon.

Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke said Friday that the Kraken will put all of the collected hats inside an acrylic box to be displayed at the team’s newly opening 32 Bar & Grill restaurant at the Community Iceplex training center.

For now, the team is figuring out what to do with any subsequent hats collected due to Kraken hat tricks at home, though post-COVID the plan is to turn them over to charity.