The Wild Genius of Brent Sapergia: British Hockey’s Most Explosive Import

By Ken Abbott

Before the days of online scouting and highlight reels, hockey imports were found through word of mouth and thick record books. One of those names — tucked away in the stats of the early 1990s — would turn British hockey upside down.

That name was Brent Sapergia.
And his story is part legend, part chaos, and completely unforgettable.

🏒 “I Just Need Goals”

David Simms, then general manager of the Solihull Barons, was desperate for a goal scorer.

“I was talking to all the agents back in the day — Terry Pye, Jacques Noël, Sean Simpson,” he remembers. “I told Terry, ‘I just need goals.’”

Pye hesitated.

“Well, David, the only player I’ve got is Brent Sapergia… and you don’t want him.”

But when Simms flipped through his NHL Guide and Record Book, he saw a pattern: Sapergia scored everywhere he went.

“I told him, ‘Go back to that Sapergia,’” Simms says. “He tried to warn me — said he drinks, gets into trouble. I just laughed. ‘He’s coming to Solihull. Most of our fans could drink him under the table.’”

Listen to David Simms talk about Brent Sapergia
here

 

✈️ A Force of Nature Arrives

Simms signed Sapergia for £275 a week — all he could afford.

“I asked how I’d recognize him at the airport,” Simms says. “He just said, ‘Don’t worry, Simmsy

— you’ll recognize me.’”

He wasn’t kidding.

“Bold, brash, flamboyant — he was the only person you could possibly notice walking through Manchester Airport.”

Within days, the Canadian sniper was tearing up the ice for Solihull. Crowds grew. The local press showed up. Suddenly, the Barons were must-see hockey.

⚡ The Fastest Hat-Trick in Britain

In just his second weekend, Sapergia made history.

Against Cleveland, he scored three goals in 90 seconds — still believed to be the fastest hat-trick in British hockey. Moments later, he added a fourth before being ejected.

“Twenty minutes later, he’s trying to climb back over the plexiglass in his dress clothes to get back on the ice,” Simms laughs.

He had everything: skating power, raw strength, and an NHL-caliber shot. “The best pure goal scorer I’ve ever seen,” Simms says. “Brabant was the best all-round player — but Brent? He was a finisher by a country mile.”

🍺 The Night It All Went Wrong

Then came that night.

On a Thursday, Sapergia filmed a lighthearted segment for BBC Midlands Today. The next evening, he joined club chairman Gary Hill for a drink at a pub in Birmingham — right across from a police station.

That’s when trouble walked through the door.

“They were just leaving the bar,” says Simms, “and the TV inside was playing Brent’s interview. Some blokes started mouthing off. Gary went back to grab his coat, words were exchanged, and a fight broke out.”

Sapergia jumped in to help. He was wearing his Turner Cup ring, won in Indianapolis — and one punch cut a man wide open.

Unfortunately, that man was a chief inspector, and several others in the bar were off-duty policemen.

Brent was arrested, beaten, and kept overnight.

Simms rushed to the station. “He was black and blue,” he says. “But we got him out, threw him in my Peugeot 205 GTI, and drove straight to Fife. We made it twenty minutes before face-off.”

🛫 The Great Escape

The incident turned into a court case that hung over the team.

“As the months went on,” Simms explains, “the number of witnesses kept dropping. Most of them were coppers who shouldn’t have been in the bar to begin with.”

Sensing the walls closing in, Sapergia decided to leave.

He grabbed his passport and boarded a flight out of the country — the same weekend as the Durham dressing-room brawl at Wembley, an incident he was wrongly blamed for.

The next morning, Birmingham’s BRMB radio led with a surreal broadcast:

“Breaking news — Solihull Barons import Brent Sapergia has fled the country just hours before his latest court appearance.
In other news, the Americans have attacked Iraq.”

“I phoned Brent and told him, ‘Good news — you beat the Americans bombing Iraq on the early morning news,’” Simms laughs.

🔥 Gone, But Never Forgotten

Brent Sapergia never returned to Britain. Officially, he remained barred from re-entry. But his legend grew with every retelling.

“He was larger than life,” says Simms. “He lit up Solihull, made us believe, and left stories people still tell thirty years later. If you were his friend, you were a friend for life.”

In just a few wild months, Sapergia became one of British hockey’s most talked-about imports — a player who could score at will, stir up trouble, and light up a rink like few before or since.

A legend, a rogue, and a reminder that sometimes, the brightest flames burn the fastest.

Alumni

You can also listen to Podcast interviews from the Solihull Barons Alumni of former team mates here:

Chuck Taylor Episode S1E29
Mark Budz Episode S3E07
David Simms Episode S5E01
Gary Newbon Episode S5E03
Gary Newbon Blog Post