What Is a Hat Trick in Hockey? Natural and Gordie Howe Hat Tricks

A hat trick in hockey is when one player scores three goals in a single game. When it happens, fans traditionally throw their hats onto the ice to celebrate, and arena staff skate out to collect them before play resumes.

The basic definition is that simple, but hockey has a few variations with their own names. A natural hat trick has a stricter meaning, and a Gordie Howe hat trick does not require three goals at all. There is also a real question about where the term came from, since hockey borrowed it from another sport. Here is what counts, what does not and what to expect if you are in the building when it happens.

What counts as a hat trick

Any three goals by the same player in one game count, as long as they are official goals credited to him by the scorer. The type of goal does not matter:

• Even-strength goals, power play goals and shorthanded goals all count.
• Empty-net goals count. A player who scores twice and then adds an empty-netter in the final minute has a hat trick.
• A goal in overtime counts, because overtime goals are regular goals in the box score.
• Penalty shot goals count, since they are credited as goals.

The big exception is the shootout. Under NHL Rule 84.4, the player who scores the deciding goal in a shootout is not credited with a goal in his personal statistics, and the extra goal added to the final score is not charged to the losing goalie either. So a player with two goals who scores in the shootout still has two goals. You can read more about how overtime and shootouts work in our guide to how many periods are in hockey.

Scoring four or five goals still counts as a hat trick in the record books, though fans and broadcasters will usually call it a four-goal or five-goal game.

Why fans throw hats on the ice

Throwing hats is the most recognizable part of the tradition. When a player scores his third goal, especially for the home team, caps rain down from the stands and the game pauses while the ice is cleared.

The custom grew out of hat shops in Canada. Two stores claim to have started the link between three goals and a free hat: Sammy Taft, a hatter in Toronto, and Henri Henri, a hat shop in Montreal. In both stories the owners gave hats to players who scored three goals, as a bit of marketing. Public radio reporting from February 2026 described the origin as still up for debate. A Winnipeg hockey historian quoted in that reporting said fans throwing their own hats probably began gradually in the late 1940s and 1950s, once the connection between three goals and a hat was established.

What happens to the hats afterward depends on the team. According to the Hockey Hall of Fame's curator, thrown hats today often go to the player who scored or are displayed in the arena. Fans should not expect to get theirs back.

A few practical points for fans in the building:

• Wait until the goal is confirmed. A goal can be reviewed or credited to a different player, and a hat thrown too soon looks silly.
• Throw something soft, like a cap or a knit hat. Anything hard is a safety risk for players and officials.
• Accept that it is gone. Write it off as a donation to the tradition.

The natural hat trick

A natural hat trick is three goals in a row by the same player, with no goal by anyone else, on either team, in between. Some fans use an even stricter version that also requires all three goals to come in the same period. The league does not track it as a separate official stat, so you will see both versions in broadcasts and articles. The consecutive-goals definition is the most common one.

A hypothetical game to make it concrete. Player A's team wins 5-2, and the goals go like this:

• 1st period: Player B scores. 1-0.
• 2nd period: Player A scores. 2-0.
• 2nd period: Player A scores again. 3-0.
• 3rd period: the other team scores. 3-1.
• 3rd period: Player A scores. 4-1.
• 3rd period: the other team scores late. 4-2.
• 3rd period: Player C scores into an empty net. 5-2.

Player A has a hat trick, but not a natural one, because the opponent's goal at 3-1 broke up his run. If Player A had scored his third goal before that opposing goal, it would have been a natural hat trick under the common definition, and if all three had come in the second period, it would count under the strict one as well.

The Gordie Howe hat trick

A Gordie Howe hat trick is a goal, an assist and a fight by the same player in one game. It is named after Gordie Howe, the Hall of Fame forward who played most of his career with the Detroit Red Wings and was known for being both a great scorer and a very tough opponent.

The twist is that Howe himself did not do it very often. By the commonly cited count, he recorded only two Gordie Howe hat tricks, both against Toronto, in 1953 and 1954, which leaves him well down the informal lists of players who have done it most. The name reflects his reputation for combining skill with toughness rather than how often he actually pulled off the combination.

Like the natural hat trick, the Gordie Howe version is not an official NHL statistic. Fans and writers track it informally. In rulebook terms, the fight part usually means a five-minute major penalty for fighting, which is explained in our guide to the power play in hockey, where you can also see why two fighting majors at once usually do not change the strength on the ice.

Where the term hat trick comes from

Hockey borrowed the phrase from cricket. In cricket, a hat trick is a bowler, the player who delivers the ball, dismissing three batters with three consecutive deliveries. British newspapers in the 1800s reported cricketers receiving a hat as a prize for the feat at a time when players were poorly paid, and by 1874 hat trick had become the common name for it, according to a cricket historian interviewed by public radio in 2026.

Nobody knows for certain who first used the phrase, and accounts differ on exactly how it jumped to hockey. The Canadian hat shop stories above are the best known explanation. Today the term is used across many sports, including soccer, where three goals by one player is also called a hat trick, and even horse racing and darts.

Hat tricks in other sports

If you follow more than one sport, it helps to know the milestone that plays a similar role elsewhere. Basketball's closest equivalent is the triple-double, ten or more in three statistical categories in one game, which we cover in what is a triple-double. Baseball has no single equivalent, though hitting for the cycle gets similar attention.

The hockey version stands out for how often fans take part. A triple-double does not stop the game. A home team hat trick does, at least for the minute or two it takes to scoop up a pile of caps.

Hat trick quick reference

The terms side by side:

• Hat trick: three goals by one player in one game, any kind of goal, overtime included.
• Natural hat trick: three consecutive goals by one player with no other goal in between. Some use a stricter same-period version.
• Gordie Howe hat trick: a goal, an assist and a fight in one game. Unofficial.
• Shootout goals: never count toward a hat trick, since they are not credited as goals.
• Hats on the ice: a fan tradition that grew up from the late 1940s, with origin stories tied to hat shops in Toronto and Montreal.

If you are at the arena with a cap you do not mind losing, keep it handy for the third goal and wait until the goal is confirmed before letting it fly.