Eight years later, he’s just pulled up his 100th game in the New Zealand Ice Hockey League, representing the SkyCity Stampede the entire time, and came tantalisingly close in Christchurch last Sunday to netting 100 regular season goals.
Having scored one goal on Saturday against the Canterbury Red Devils in his team’s 6-4 win, and another two during Sunday’s 6-2 win, he’s sitting on 99 goals, with 148 assists and 247 points.
"At the end of the year, if all goes well, I’ll probably be at 300 points," he says.
"You’ve got to play a long time to put up that many points, with good teammates."
It’s particularly impressive given he missed almost all the 2022 season while he managed pericarditis, a condition a cardiologist confirmed he developed as a result of the Covid vaccine, and has missed other Stampede games to coach the Wakatipu Wild women’s team.
Originally from The Pas, in Manitoba, Canada, McIntosh arrived in Queenstown in 2017, having played for five years in Germany and France and spent half a season at New York State’s Watertown Wolves.
He recalls having a yarn with one of his college buddies, who’s from Australia, who’d mentioned being keen to one day play for the Stampede.
McIntosh looked it up online and determined it’d be "pretty sweet".
The next morning he woke to a message from Stampede stalwart Mike McRae, asking if he’d be keen to come for a season.
"I flew out two and a-half or three weeks later."
Not long after arriving he met his partner, Wild captain Kellye Nelson, and at the end of that year headed to Germany during the offseason.
Nelson returned to Queenstown for work, and McIntosh, keen for another hockey season here, came back, too.
At the end of his second season they headed to Sweden, then boomeranged again.
"You can’t really go wrong with Queenstown, the hockey community is great, so that’s a big aspect of it."
He’s particularly grateful to his sponsors, Morrison’s Irish Pub, Ruatoto Henry, Rob Crawford Jr and Kaitlyn Gruber, who’ve helped him build a life here.
Last year, McIntosh and Nelson became Kiwi citizens — they’ll both suit up for the Ice Blacks and Ice Fernz this month during the men’s and women’s world champs, being played in Dunedin.
After that, McIntosh, 37, will either be playing for the Stampede, or coaching the Wild, every weekend till the end of August.
He says he’s hugely impressed by the women’s showing during their opening round, against Auckland Steel, in Queenstown last Friday and Saturday, which they lost 6-2, 1-0.
"As much as I hate losing, I said in the dressing rooms [on Friday night] ... six girls made their [NZ Women’s Ice Hockey League] debuts, so you can’t really expect much more than what we gave.
"Considering the players who stepped up to play, whether it was their first game, or their first game in a couple of years, it was a testament to the women of the area."
