It wasn’t a cause for concern in the first three seasons of the Jets return to Winnipeg as no player scored the three goals requisite to cause fans to toss their hats onto the ice in celebration of the feat.
That all changed when Bryan Little scored three goals on December 5th, 2014 against the Colorado Avalanche. Fans almost seemed unsure what to do but eventually they got into it and began to toss their caps onto the ice.
The feat laid to rest talk of the last hat trick in the organization’s history as Eric Bolton of The Greek God line possessed same from a game Atlanta played against Martin Brodeur and the New Jersey Devils on Dec. 18, 2010.
While Jets fans probably expected that it may be some time before we see another one little did they know that on a seemingly unremarkable Tuesday night at the MTS Centre Mathieu Perreault would put on quite the performance. The best part about his third goal was that fans weren’t sure if he tipped the Tobias Enstrom point shot. One lone fan tossed his hat onto the ice while others nervously awaited word from PA announcer Jay Richardson.
Eventually it was determined that he had in fact tipped the puck and the hats rained down on the MTS Centre ice as fans went nuts having waited just 39 days between hat tricks.
While Mathieu Perreault checked out the 100s of hats as they left the ice, fans began to tweet at us “What happens to the hats that are tossed on the ice?”.
I reached out to True North today and their response was “True North is discussing a number of ideas but have yet to make a final determination.”
In the case of Eric Staal who scored three on April 8th, 2010 (ironically on the same day the Hurricanes ran a hat giveaway promo) he donated the hats to a local charity. The Columbus Blue Jackets and Washington Capitals add them to a display they keep at the Nationwide Arena and Verizon Center respectively. A number of other NHL teams similarly keep them for display while others donate them to charity.
So what do you think should happen to the hats?
Update: After Nikolaj Ehlers potted his first hat trick in his rookie season on January 26th, 2016 I asked the question once again. This time I was told by the Jets that while nothing is official eventually there will be some sort of display.
