What is the term for a player scoring three goals in a single game?

What is the term for a player scoring three goals in a single game? It is a hat trick.

In ice hockey, a hat trick means that one player scores three goals in the same game. The achievement is traditionally celebrated by spectators throwing hats onto the ice, creating one of hockey’s most recognizable fan rituals.

The tradition is associated with several competing origin stories involving Canadian hat sellers and hockey clubs. One frequently cited story connects the practice to the Biltmore Hat Company, which sponsored the Guelph Biltmore Mad Hatters in the 1940s. The NHL’s first game, played on December 18, 1917, also featured a hat trick by Montreal Wanderers forward Harry Hyland.

A natural hat trick is a more specific achievement: the player scores three consecutive goals without another player from either team scoring between them. A “Gordie Howe hat trick,” by contrast, usually means a goal, an assist, and a fight in one game; it is not the same as scoring three goals.