Homegrown players are a crucial part of roster development in leagues across Europe. 

But the idea of relying on native players is an alien concept to many fans in North America, so what is it all about?

In Europe, players are often divided into two categories; imports and homegrowns. An import being a foreign player who has moved to a European country to play for the team while a homegrown player has that country's passport. 

The Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) for example has rules in place which force teams to sign a minimum number of homegrown players in order to prevent full rosters of imports and promote the game in the country.

In their official 2023 rule book, the EIHL stated: “The number of players on a gameday will remain at 20, composed of 18 skaters and two netminders. A maximum of 15 imports will be permitted on each team’s game-day roster.”

A maximum of 20 imports is permitted on the team’s official roster though which has a maximum size of 29 players, not including injury reserve cover.

Throughout the league’s history though, this has been a difficult rule to follow for teams especially with the rise in quality of the lower divisions such as the National Ice Hockey League (NIHL.)

Recently, a large number of British players have even been seen swapping out top-division contracts with EIHL teams for playing in the NIHL.

A large number of players are making the move to the UK’s second division in order to gain more ice time, for similar pay as the NIHL grows to a comparable size with the EIHL.

On the contrary though, some of the EIHL’s most prolific and longest-serving players are native to the UK.

From Rob Lachowicz, who recently became just the fourth player to ever reach 900 appearances in the EIHL, to Robert Dowd and Jonathan Phillips, the Sheffield Steelers’ legends with almost 2,000 combined appearances for the club.

The prominence and use of homegrown players is crucial to the growth and survival of European leagues especially to create and keep that local fan connection.

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