Good Questions: Hat Trick Hats, Growlers, Ear Wax
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The last time the Minnesota Wild scored a hat trick at the Xcel Energy Center was November 2014. Nino Niederreiter scored three goals against Buffalo.
So, Lindsey from Maplewood asks: What happens to the hats people throw on the ice after a hat trick?
Each team has a different policy, but the Wild says all of the hats on its ice are collected and counted. The Wild community relations department then buys the same number of new Wild hats and donates them to local children's cancer departments.
People are able to claim their hats back the night of the game, and whatever hats are leftover are thrown out.
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John from Minneapolis asks: Why is a growler called a growler?
"The story I heard was when the breweries were the focus of the small towns, the farmers would send the kids down to brewery to pick up buckets of beer," Flat Earth Brewing's director of operations Franco Claseman said. "It had a loose top and the carbon dioxide would be releasing and would make the tops rattle and create the sound of a growl."
A second theory is that when the beer was poured into the pail, it would create so much foam, people would complain -- or growl. But beer historian Doug Hoverson, author of "Land of Amber Waters," doesn't necessarily buy those reasons. He thinks maybe it was just regional slang that caught on. Growlers were what people called those types of pails in the early 1900s.
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Kurt from Alton wants to know: Why do we have ear wax?
Ear wax, which is 20 percent to 50 percent fat, moisturizes our ears so they don't get dry and itchy, it has chemicals to help us fight off infections and it traps any dust or dirt before it gets all the way into the ear.