Sean Hoppe

Sean "Shoppe" Edward Hoppe (born 19 January 1971) is a New Zealand former professional rugby league footballer who represented his country.

As a junior, he played for the Glen Innes Falcons, a feeder club to Ellerslie during the 1980s.

Hoppe then joined the Northcote Tigers and played for them in the Auckland Rugby League competition. In 1989 he was part of the Tigers Fox Memorial and Lion Red National Knockout title winning side. He was a part of several other Northcote winning teams during these years and scored two tries in the 1991 Lion Red League final. In 1992 he played for Auckland in a preseason match against the Canberra Raiders. Auckland lost 14–32, but the Raiders, who had been looking for a quality winger since the retirement of John Ferguson, saw enough of Hoppe to offer him a contract and he moved to Canberra before the end of the year.

Hoppe played 17 games in his first season and won the Raiders' 1992 Rookie of the year award. Hoppe was the New Zealand Player of the Year in 1993. However at the end of the 1993 season it was announced that Hoppe had signed for the new Auckland Warriors side who were to enter the competition in 1995. Canberra were unwilling to sign Hoppe for just one more year and so he joined the North Sydney Bears for the 1994 season and thus missed the Raiders 1994 Grand Final win over Canterbury-Bankstown (North Sydney lost the GF qualifier to the Raiders). He was part of the Warriors inaugural side in 1995 and became a regular first team player. He was voted the competition's best winger in 1995 and his 19 tries in the 1995 season remained a club record until 2003 (when it was surpassed by Francis Meli). He is currently fourth on the club's all-time try scoring list with 44.