Hat trick?

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:31 PM -0400 5/19/02, Alice Faber wrote:
>Dennis R. Preston wrote:
>>In a strange game (apparently played where water freezes even outside
>>refrigerators) three scores (goals) are known as a "hat trick." Why?
>
>You *gots* to pay more attention to your local news, Dennis! A hat trick is
>when the three goals are scored by the same player, so it's a pretty rare
>occurrence. Especially when it happens in a tense conference championship
>game, and the player who does it has never before done it in his career.
>So, three goals in a game isn't unusual; three goals by the same player is.
>I could come up with comparably rare feats in other sports, but I'll
>spare you.
>
And an even rarer feat is the *natural* hat trick, not to imply that
the other kinds are unnatural.  (If i'm not mistaken--and i'm much
likelier to be about hockey than the other "major" sports--the
natural kind entails a player scoring on three consecutive shots,
with no missed shots in between.)

larry