Hat-trick
In sports, a hat-trick (more often rendered in North America as hat trick, without the hyphen) is associated with achieving something in a group of three.
It is generally agreed that the term was originally used in cricket, and was connected with the custom of giving a hat or cap to a bowler who achieved the feat of taking three wickets in a row. It may be connected with the concept of giving someone their "cap", i.e. acknowledging them as a regular member of a representative team.
Cricket
In cricket, a hat-trick is when a bowler dismisses three batsmen with consecutive deliveries. The deliveries may be interrupted by an over bowled by another bowler from the other end of the pitch or the other team's innings, but must occur within the same game. Only wickets attributed to the bowler count, i.e. run outss do not contribute to a hat-trick.
In Test cricket history, there have been 34 hat-tricks, the first achieved by Fred Spofforth for England against Australia in 1879, and the most recent by Matthew Hoggard for England against the West Indies in 2004. In 1912, Australian Jimmy Matthews achieved the feat twice in one game against South Africa. The only other player to achieve two hat-tricks is Pakistan's Wasim Akram, in separate games against Sri Lanka in 1999.
Hockey
In both field hockey and ice hockey, a hat-trick is when a player scores three goals in a single game.
In ice hockey, if a member of the home team scores a hat-trick, fans acknowledge it by throwing their own hats from the stands onto the ice, often causing a delay in play.
A natural hat trick in ice hockey occurs when a player scores three goals in a row, in the same game without any other player scoring in between.
Association Football (Soccer)
In association football, a hat-trick is when a player scores three goals in a single game.
Possibly the most famous football hat-trick of all time was by Geoff Hurst when he scored 3 times for England in the 4-2 defeat of West Germany in the Football World Cup Final of 1966. The BBC commentator on this match, Kenneth Wolstenholme spoke one of the most famous phrases in television history in the dying seconds of the match: "Some people are on the pitch! They think it's all over..." (Geoff Hurst scores his third goal) "...it is now."
In most professional games, the scorer of the hat-trick is allowed to return home with the match ball as a souvenir.