If you throw your hat onto the ice after a Guelph Storm hat trick, you might soon see it in a box at the Sleeman Centre, as the team pays an ode to Guelph's hockey past.
A display is set up at the Sleeman Centre dedicated to the home team’s three-goal performers, and the hockey players that came before them in the city.
Hockey historians have long called Guelph the birthplace of the hat trick.
Flash back to the days of the Guelph Biltmore Mad Hatters.
Biltmore sponsored the team and began a tradition in the 1950s of awarding a new Biltmore hat to any player who scored three goals in a game.
That tradition has since fallen by the wayside, but a new tradition has been born and answers the question: where does a hat trick hat go after it is thrown on the ice in Guelph?
The bin on the north end concourse features a plexiglass bin containing hats thrown on the ice, the names and dates of three-goal performances and a mural with players from the past.
“We had to work with the Hockey Hall of Fame to get some photos through their photo archives,” said Matt Newby, the Storm’s vice-president, business operations.”
“We got a bunch of photos from the 1950s that tie into the Mad Hatters.”
This new venture began when Newby saw a similar display at the home of the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets about six years ago.
“It’s been in the back of my mind ever since,” he said.
“When we started working with Fixed Gear and their hat trick beer, it was a natural fit there, and then it was just doing the back end leg work, research, tracking down all the hat tricks we’ve had.”
Every hat trick in Storm regular season history is noted with its own plate, indicating the player, the date and the opponent.
Newby said it is really important to acknowledge the past, pointing out the team also has other acknowledgements to the Mad Hatters and the Platers near its front office.
He added the hat trick display is part of a bigger project, with the Sleeman Centre’s 25th anniversary coming up this fall.
“We’re hoping that people appreciate it, and for people that didn’t know, it’s one of those things that – we just went through it with the jockstraps, there was people who didn’t know that was invented in Guelph – the history of the hat trick tying back to Guelph and hockey, it’s a neat little thing that we can boast about,” he said.
