Our story
Two brothers.
One realisation.
One stick.
NEPHE started in a locker room in La Chaux-de-Fonds, between two broken sticks and one invoice too many.
01
Where we come from
We grew up on the ice. Trained at HC La Chaux-de-Fonds, then through the elite level: Pablo in Biel, Matisse in Fribourg. We also played in the MySports League, the Swiss third division, with Franches-Montagnes.
Five to six practices a week, for years. Between the two of us, that's around thirty years of hockey.
We know this sport from the inside. And we know exactly what it costs.
02
What we saw around us
A top-end stick costs over CHF 350. Over a season, you break eight, nine, sometimes ten of them. That's not an exception, that's the norm.
We watched teammates ease off, play with gear that couldn't keep up, or quit. We watched parents pay, season after season, without ever saying a word.
We've been told it already: at that price, it's almost charity. We'll own that.
NEPHE exists because of what we lived through, not because we spotted a market worth taking. Our goal fits in one sentence: the price of a stick should never be the reason someone stops playing.
03
The question nobody asks
Why does a hockey stick cost CHF 350?
Everyone pays. Nobody asks why. So we looked elsewhere, ordered direct, compared, took apart whatever we could get our hands on. And eventually we understood something nobody says out loud.
Carbon was never the expensive part.
What costs money is global ad campaigns, sponsorship contracts, distribution teams, retailer margins and showrooms in every country. All of it lands on your bill, and none of it improves your shot.
So the real question wasn't how to build a cheaper stick. It was why nobody had done it before.
04
A partner, not an anonymous factory
The market is flooded with counterfeits and no-name sticks, bulk ordered from Asia. The price is low, and that's the only argument they have. The problem is what actually shows up in the box: no quality control, no consistency from one batch to the next, and nobody to talk to when the stick gives out after three games. You pay twice.
We did the opposite. A single manufacturing partner, picked after a long search. An engineer with over twenty years of experience building carbon sticks, who spent his career producing for the big names of the market.
We work hand in hand. We audit production on site, we follow every batch, and we stand behind what we sell.
You don't beat counterfeits by cutting the price further. You beat them by building something better. And it doesn't stop there: together with him, we keep pushing the technical design of the stick, batch after batch, to make it stronger with everything today's materials allow.
05
Why NEPHE
Nephe comes from nephos, the Greek word for "cloud". The name arrived the day we picked up the first finished prototype. 350 grams, almost nothing in your hands.
A short name, one simple idea: the stick should disappear, and leave all the room to the play.
06
25 April 2026
Les Mélèzes ice rink, Tournoi des Bourdons. We set up a stand, laid our sticks on a table, and let players pick them up. That was the official launch.
Three weeks later we were at the Ice Hockey World Championship in Fribourg. And in under three months, close to a thousand sticks went out.
They covered us
Press
07
What we promise you
You break your stick on a Friday, you should be back on the ice on Tuesday. The most requested flexes and curves stay available, and we size our orders around that.
No group order, no five-week wait. We ship from La Chaux-de-Fonds, from available stock.
No paid stars, no showrooms, no retailer network. We stay small, and that's a choice.
08
What's next
A goalie stick, in development. A new shaft generation, in testing. And the rest of the range, piece by piece.
We keep designing from La Chaux-de-Fonds, we keep playing, and we keep breaking sticks. It's still the best way to know whether they hold.
Matisse & Pablo, La Chaux-de-Fonds