Kaleta is known for creating the hat trick tradition in hockey when he went into a Toronto shop to buy a hat but when he found one he liked he could n't afford it . During his tenure with the Black Hawks , he is credited with having begun the tradition of the hat trick during the 1945 â `` 46 season , when he entered a shop in Toronto looking for a new hat . Without enough money to buy one , he reached an agreement with shop owner Sammy Taft that if he scored three goals that night in a game against the Toronto Maple Leafs , he would earn a free hat .