Scoring three goals in one game in hockey, cricket, soccer, rugby and, yes, lacrosse is called a hat trick. Unlike those other sports, however, lacrosse is a high-scoring game, so a hat trick is more common. The relative ease of scoring three goals caused some lacrosse aficionados to coin a new term for high scoring excellence in a single game
Origin
Calling three goals a hat trick appears to have originated in 1858 in a cricket match in England. The exact facts surrounding the origin of the term are murky. After H. H. Stephenson took three wickets in three balls, some say he was awarded a hat for his efforts. Others say a hat was passed to collect money from fans who wanted to reward him for his three scores in a row.
Scoring
Scoring in soccer, rugby, hockey and cricket is much more rare than in lacrosse. Typically, 20 or more points are racked up in a lacrosse game. According to the NCAA, the scoring average in 2009 in all college lacrosse games including Division I, Division II, and Division III, was 21. Players score by getting a hard, rubber, tennis-ball sized ball into a net in any way possible except by using their hands.
Tradition
Hat tricks come in different varieties: A regular hat-trick of three goals in one game, and a natural hat trick, which occurs when a player scores three unassisted goals in a row without any other players from either team scoring. No matter the kind, there's a tradition in hockey --- and in field hockey, which is similar to lacrosse --- of throwing hats onto the ice from the stands after a player scores his third goal. This tradition has been embraced and modified for lacrosse.
Sock Trick
Because scoring a hat trick in lacrosse doesn't have the same panache as in other sports, lacrosse has it's own variation on the hat trick to acknowledge a truly celebratory achievement: While working a lacrosse game in Colorado in 2004, announcer Steve Meade referred to scoring six goals as a "sock trick." The term became memorialized as a a permanently accepted part of lacrosse when player Gary Gait notched six goals and fans responded by throwing socks onto the field.
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