Although hockey has made the hat trick famous, especially through the sight of fans tossing hats onto the ice, the expression began in cricket. In its original sporting sense, a hat trick meant a bowler taking three wickets with three consecutive deliveries—an exceptional achievement rewarded, quite literally, with a hat, long before hockey claimed the phrase.
How the Term Began in Cricket
The phrase is widely associated with English cricketer H.H. Stephenson. In 1858, while playing at Hyde Park Cricket Grounds in Sheffield, Stephenson dismissed three batters with three successive balls. Spectators reportedly collected money to buy him a hat in recognition of the feat. Oxford’s definition still traces the expression to this cricket custom.
That story explains both halves of the expression. The “hat” was the prize, while “trick” captured the remarkable skill and surprise of dismissing three opponents in a row. Historical records differ on the earliest printed appearance and whether every detail of the Stephenson story can be proved, but the cricket connection is firmly established.
How Hockey Adopted Cricket’s Phrase
As the expression spread, it became shorthand for achieving something three times in sports including soccer, horse racing, and hockey. In hockey, it now means one player scoring three goals in a game. The NHL notes that the term was already used in newspapers before hat giveaways helped popularize it during the 1940s.
The modern hockey ritual of showering the rink with hats makes the phrase seem born for the ice. Yet every flying cap quietly points back to a cricket pitch in nineteenth-century England.
So, the next time a forward scores three goals, remember that hockey is borrowing a piece of cricket history. Fans curious about another piece of ice-sport terminology can also test themselves with this question about where a sports “crease” is found.