Every year around this time, the chatter starts. Rosters get shuffled, announcements trickle through social media, and fans across the country begin asking the same question: who's coming? The import player has become one of the defining storylines of the New Zealand Ice Hockey League, not just because of what they bring on the ice, but because of what their arrival signals about the direction of a club. This season, as the NZIHL prepares to get underway with its 2026 campaign kicking off in May, each of the five main franchises has made moves that deserve a closer look. Some are betting on experience. Some are betting on youth. And one team, carrying the weight of last season's sting, is betting that two new faces currently playing in Europe can finally change the tide.
Before diving into who's arriving, it helps to understand the landscape they're walking into. The 2025 season was, by most measures, a stunning one for the league. Packed arenas, record livestream numbers, and a grand final that drew enough attention to bring the Prime Minister himself out for a ceremonial puck drop. The SkyCity Stampede, continued their extraordinary run by claiming their fifth consecutive Birgel Cup and their tenth title overall, sweeping the Botany Swarm in two dominant games at Paradice Botany. Game one, an 8-0 shutout, was only the second time in finals history that a team had been blanked in a championship game. The departure of Colin McIntosh who was named Finals MVP to cap off yet another remarkable season for a player who has quietly become one of the most decorated in the league's history, will sadly be missed. However, the Stampede remain, by any measure, the standard everyone else is chasing.
For the Botany Swarm, that finals exit stings a little differently knowing they had finished first in the regular season, earning home ice advantage for the decider, only to be outdone by the experienced Stampede side. The Swarm are a team with genuine talent and real ambition, and after consecutive finals appearances in 2023 and 2025, the hunger to go one better is palpable. They've brought in two imports with the tools to help them make that next step. Rudolfs Oto Lapsa, a Latvian-born forward who most recently played in the Netherlands, arrives as a technically gifted player with good instincts around the puck and the kind of skating ability that translates well to the faster tempo of NZIHL hockey. Alongside him comes Nico Hemming, an American forward out of Colorado who has carved out a career across multiple leagues in Germany before arriving in the Southern Hemisphere. Hemming is a physical, compete-hard type of forward who will bring an edge to the Swarm's forward group that they've sometimes lacked in the big moments. Together, they give Botany a deeper and more versatile attack to complement returning young homegrown talent and the well-established backbone of the roster. Whether it's enough to finally break through and end Queenstown's stranglehold on the Birgel Cup remains the central question for this club, but the intent is clear.
In Queenstown, the Stampede come into 2026 as reigning champions and have once again strengthened their import pool with purpose. Maxwell Roth, a defenseman from Evanston, Illinois, makes his way to New Zealand with a resume that includes time in the ECHL and various North American circuits. At six-foot-one and with a left-handed shot, Roth offers the kind of blue-line presence that can quietly drive a team's puck possession and transition game. He joins alongside Conner Jean, a centre from Michigan who has played professional hockey across North America, Australia and Europe, most recently skating in France. Jean is an experienced, two-way forward who won faceoffs at Holy Cross, played in the AIHL for the Perth Thunder, and continued his career through leagues in Sweden and France. His ability to play in multiple roles gives Stampede head coach Cam Frear flexibility up the middle, which is invaluable in a league where depth and adaptability often decide series. The Stampede have built their dynasty not just on star power but on the kind of systematic recruitment that adds complementary pieces around a proven core, and this year's imports look like more of the same.
Down in Christchurch, the Canterbury Red Devils are the team that the rest of the league wants to see take a step forward. After finishing last in the 2025 regular season, the Red Devils had their moments of brightness, particularly through Fabian Hast, who was named team MVP for his 30-point campaign, an effort that tied him fourth in the entire league's scoring race. The fact that Hast is coming back for 2026 is significant on its own. A player of that calibre, returning to a team that's been rebuilding, speaks to either genuine belief in the club's direction or a loyalty that goes beyond the standings, and most likely it's both. His return gives Canterbury a reliable, proven offensive engine to build around. The addition that has caught attention, however, is Alex Gagnon, a Canadian-born forward who was born in Dorval, Quebec and has most recently been playing in Germany's fourth tier with EHC Klostersee after time with the Peoria Rivermen in North America. Gagnon is still a young player at 27, and while his most recent club level reflects the journeyman nature of a career that has taken him across multiple leagues and continents, there's a reason the Red Devils have identified him. Players who move through diverse hockey cultures tend to be adaptable, competitive, and hungry in a way that suits the NZIHL well. The chemistry between Gagnon and the returning Hast will be one of the more interesting developments to watch this season. If the Red Devils can finally string together some consistency in net, a rotation that proved costly in 2025, these two could form the nucleus of a much more competitive side.
Further south in Dunedin, the Phoenix Thunder have made what might be the most talked-about pair of import signings in the league this off-season. Luke Stegmann, one of the league's premier defensemen, is returning for another season after a 2025 campaign in which he put up 28 points from the blue line across 14 games. That kind of production from a defenseman is remarkable by any standard, and his read of the game, skating ability and shot give the Thunder a weapon that few teams can neutralise. His return alone would have been enough to excite the Dunedin faithful. But the Thunder have gone further by adding a player specifically because he and Stegmann know each other well. Samuel Loiselle, a 25-year-old defenseman from La Malbaie, Quebec, stands at six-foot-three and tips the scales at 220 pounds. He's a big, mobile defenseman who has played at a high level in the LNAH, one of Canada's more competitive semi-professional leagues, and arrives in Dunedin with the kind of puck-moving and physical game that the Thunder coaching staff have been actively targeting. The pairing of Loiselle and Stegmann gives Dunedin a defensive unit that could legitimately rival anything the Stampede can put on the ice. If the Thunder can convert that back-end strength into offensive production and post-season resilience, they are a genuine contender for the 2026 Birgel Cup.
And then there are the Pure NZ West Auckland Admirals. Steady, gritty, proud of their roots, and perpetually dangerous despite rarely getting the credit their organisation deserves. The Admirals finished third in the 2025 regular season and remain a team built on the kind of collective spirit and defensive discipline that makes them difficult to play against. They've confirmed the return of Vadim Sevenier, the French-Canadian forward who was part of their 2025 setup, and who brings a competitive edge that fits the Admirals' identity perfectly. Born in Paris and holding dual French-Canadian nationality, Sevenier is a young player still finding his ceiling, and a second season in Auckland can only help him grow into a more influential force within the squad. Whether a second import is added before the season opens remains to be seen, with the club still potentially having a spot to fill, but even at this stage the Admirals look well set to be competitive across the regular season.
What makes the import story compelling in the NZIHL is that it's never just about the numbers on the points leader board. It's about fit, culture, timing and hunger. A player who arrives from Europe or North America having just had a frustrating experience elsewhere can be transformed by a new environment, new teammates and a league where the pressure to perform is real but the community around the game is genuinely warm and welcoming. Likewise, a player who arrives here with big expectations and small effort quickly finds that the NZIHL rewards neither passengers nor passengers pretending to be leaders. The players arriving in 2026 have been recruited by coaches and management teams who understand what their clubs need, and who have done the work to find the right fit rather than simply the biggest name available.
As the season gets underway and the ice is set for the first puck drop of 2026, the imports in this article will have their chance to answer the questions being asked of them. Those questions will be answered on the ice. That's the beauty of it. New Zealand's ice hockey community has spent two decades building something worth watching, worth travelling to, and worth caring deeply about. And every import who steps off a plane and laces up for the first time in a Kiwi dressing room becomes part of that story, whether they know it yet or not.