According to one of our spies, there were a number of Caps fans in attendance at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio on New Year’s Eve as the Capitals played the Blue Jackets. But one of the most interesting nuggets came when we found out about the hat-trick bin, where they put all the hats after someone scores three goals. They even list who scored one (and when) on the glass. (Of course, Wyshynski has written about this before but it was a while ago.)

A couple of questions: Considering hats are sitting on the heads of hockey fans from Columbus, isn’t this a health hazard? It’s basically a gigantic trash heap of lice-infested Blue Jackets headgear. And what will happen when the tank gets full? Will they build a new one, or get rid of the old hats and start over? When an opposing player scores a hat-trick, and the opposing fans throw their hats, do they go in the bin? Alex Ovechkin was one short tonight of making that a possibility, especially with so many Caps fans in attendance.

More important question: Should the Capitals do something like this? It was talked about a while ago (and of course, if there is a bin that we haven’t heard about, call us morons for not knowing).

Our answer is no, because Capitals fans are notorious for throwing hats for non-hat tricks, like when a Capital has two goals and then another during a shootout, or when Dennis Wideman scores his third then selflessly tells everyone that Brooks Laich scored it. You know, we wouldn’t want Washington’s hat-tank to be filled with non-hat-trick hats, now, would we?

More photos of the hat-trick bin, all via our spy, @akdevilducky.