A Hat's Trick

It doesn't matter if you are into sports or not, you must have heard it. Not just in sports, it's application ranges to anything and everything which can be achieved thrice, not necessarily but usually consecutively. No prizes for guessing, I'm talking about 'Hat-Trick'. Have you ever wondered why such an unusual name has been coined for the feat it refers to? It could have been any other fancy name like 'Triple Threat', 'Triple Treat', 'Hand-Trick', 'Trick or Treat', 'Trident', 'Tri-Trick', 'Shoe-Trick' and so on (*No one except me is responsible for all these freaky names). What can be the story behind the origins of this elusive word, which can be a game-changer in any field & brings out sheer joy or heartbreak depending on which side you are? Let us shed some light on it & try to solve the cause and effect of this 'Trick'.

So, where does the term 'hat trick' come from? The first sport to be associated with the term was cricket. The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson's taking three wickets with three consecutive deliveries. Fans held a collection for Stephenson and presented him with a hat bought with the proceeds. From the 1870s onward, 'hat tricks' are mentioned in cricketing literature; for example, this piece from James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual 1877:

Having on one occasion taken six wickets in seven balls, thus performing the hat-trick successfully.

H. H. Stephenson

Though it doesn't quite explain what a 'hat-trick' is actually, many of you might have figured out that, to take six wickets in seven balls, a bowler has to take at least three consecutive wickets. The accepted theory, though might not be precise due to lack of sufficient records, is- that if a bowler dismissed three batsmen in a row, a collection was taken and the proceeds were used to buy him a new hat. Either that or a hat was passed around the crowd & the proceeds were offered to the bowler.

That explains 'hat' but why use 'trick'? The feat is difficult & quite a rarity, but 'trick' doesn't seem the obvious word for it. What may well have influenced the choice of words was the sudden popularity of stage conjurers' 'Hat Tricks', which immediately preceded the first use of the term on the cricket field. The magician's Hat Trick, where items, typically rabbits, bunches of flowers, streams of flags etc., are pulled out of a top hat, is well-known to us now but was a novelty in the 1860s. It isn't known who invented the trick. The first printed reference can be found in Punch Magazine, 1858:

Professor Willjabber Derby's Clever Hat-Trick. Wiljada Freckel was a clever German conjuror, who produced an infinity of objects from a hat.

This 1899 advertising poster for a magician prominently features the hat- trick.

The trick is accomplished by either using a top hat with a false lid or by sleight of hand. It became something of a fascination in Victorian England and, while 'hat trick' wasn't seen in print before 1858, the term appears many times in newspapers throughout the rest of the 19th century. When cricketers in the 1870s wanted to give a name to an impressive achievement that involved a hat, what more obvious name than the currently pervading expression 'hat trick'? The term was also appropriated from the variety stage for the political stage, where Victorian MPs were said to have 'done a hat trick' whenever they reserved their seat in the House of Commons by leaving their top hat on it. After the term was used in print for the first time in 1865, it was eventually adopted by many other sports including hockey, ice hockey, football, water polo, handball, basketball & plenty more.
Surprisingly, in both field hockey & ice hockey, A hat trick, as it is known in its current form, usually culminates with fans throwing hats onto the ice from the stands, when a player scores three goals in a single match. The tradition is said to have begun among fans in the National Hockey League around the 1950s.

There are several conflicting legends of how the "hat trick" was popularised in professional hockey. Most stories involve hats being awarded to any of the local players who scored three goals in a game. According to the NHL, in the 1940s, a Toronto haberdasher used to give free hats to players with the Toronto Maple Leafs when they scored three goals in a game. In a slightly different account, the expression originates not with any member of a team, but with a particular player. According to legend, Chicago Blackhawks forward Alex Kaleta entered the shop of Toronto businessman Sammy Taft to purchase a new hat but did not have enough money. Taft arranged a deal with Kaleta stipulating that if Kaleta scored three goals as he played the Toronto Maple Leafs that night, Taft would give him a free hat. That night, on 26 January 1946, Kaleta scored four goals against the Maple Leafs and Taft made good on his offer. This is the story accepted as the origin of the phrase by the Hockey Hall of Fame.
While charming fables, all these explanations of the introduction of the term “hat trick” in hockey are too late to be true. On Dec. 8, 1933, the Winnipeg Free Press describes a hockey game in which “Romeo Rivers, rugged wingman” for the Monarchs scored three goals in the same game, describing how “Romeo completed his ‘hat trick’” when he scored his third goal of the night after taking a pass from a teammate who had drawn the goalie out of position. By 1944, the term “hat trick” was so well established in hockey that the Winnipeg Free Press (Nov. 29, 1944, p. 14) reports that “hockey’s traditional ‘hat-trick’ – the feat of scoring three goals in a single game – will receive official recognition from the Amateur Hockey Association” of the US by awarding a small silver derby hat to players to mark the accomplishment. Thus, by 1944 the term "hat trick" was common enough to be termed “traditional.” Given how frequently the words “hat trick” were used in sports reporting on cricket and soccer in the early 20th century, the term was probably routinely used in hockey by the early 1930s.
In case of Baseball, on 29 August 2015, Toronto Blue Jays fans celebrated Edwin Encarnación's third home run of the game by throwing hats onto the field, similar to the tradition in ice hockey. The phenomenon continued during the 2016 season, and on 17 June 2016, a number of Blue Jays fans at Oriole Park at Camden Yards threw hats on to the field after Canadian Blue Jays player Michael Saunders hit his third home run of the night, and again on 28 August at Rogers Centre, when Blue Jays player Josh Donaldson hitting his third home run of the game in the eighth inning against the Minnesota Twins.
Now we have a fair idea about the origins of this word & also the extent of its use- from achieving a rare feat in a sporting fraternity to literally using hats (or modern day caps) to appreciate that feat. It has also found it's relevance in politics as politicians or a particular political party is said to have completed a 'hat-trick' by winning three consecutive times in a legislature or retaining the ruling status. Though you might not be as interested in a conjurer's act of pulling rabbits & various stuff in the modern day (*if you are not a kid) as it used to excite people in the era gone by. But the term has found its place in our lives and we appreciate the feat, as we have always considered number three to be mystical and very powerful, the terms related with this stat also captures our minds. Whether its a 'Hat-Trick' of victories, losses, goals, wickets, championships the holder of this accolade truly deserves a 'Hat's Off'. Wait, now where did this word come from? 😅 Looks like I might be stuck in all these 'hats' for a while! Please do share & comment, let me know if you all like it or if there's anything I missed. Keep creating Hat-Tricks (In sports to be precise😎👪😂). Bye...!!!⚽⚾🏀