Austin Kempel (Photos by Noah Clooten)
Just over 10 months ago, Austin Kempel became a hero. He scored a game-winning goal for the Devils Lake High School hockey team, clinching a spot in the EDC tournament.
If fans come out to Burdick Arena this winter, they’ll see Kempel taking on a different pursuit. Just a few months after graduating, Kempel is already getting some coaching reps for the local Lake Region State College women’s hockey team. The fresh high school graduate is assisting first-year head coach Sawyer Diseth, who was an assistant coach for Devils Lake during Kempel’s last season with the Firebirds.
Both were Firebirds last year. And both are now advancing their coaching careers at the college level.
“I think it’s going really well,” Kempel said. “It’s definitely different for both of us, switching from men’s high school hockey to girls’ college hockey. It’s another level, so it’s a whole different step. We’re learning and adjusting and trying to adapt as we can, and I think we’ve done a decent job of that.”
Diseth, now 31, has been coaching youth hockey in the Devils Lake area since around the same age that Kempel is starting. He and Firebirds head coach Landyn Swenson are fellow Devils Lake alumni as well.
Diseth remembers coaching 12-year-old Kempel.
“We all know that most young boys don’t have an attention span at 12 years old, or maybe even at 31 like myself,” Diseth said. “But Austin was always a listener. He was small, relatively, for where we play high school hockey… He had to know the game very well to play at that level.”
After the Firebirds’ season came to an end last winter, Swenson and Diseth talked to Kempel about getting into coaching. They initially discussed starting with youth hockey levels, but Kempel’s connection with Diseth eventually helped him land a role with the LRSC women’s hockey program.
“He’s very mindful; he knows hockey a lot,” Swenson said of Kempel. “So it’s good to see him in the coaching room, and one of the players that I coached. So he’s perfect for that job. I like to see former players that I coached chase after their dreams.”
Kempel’s pursuit of coaching stems back to his youth. He’s a distant relative of Dean Blais, who coached the UND Division I hockey team from 1994-2004 and won two national championships.
“He’s the reason why I played hockey in the first place,” Kempel said. “And then watching him coach growing up, I’ve always looked up and wanted to be like him.”
So in October, just four months after graduating, Kempel made his collegiate coaching debut as Diseth’s assistant. He helped the Royals to a 4-5 start before getting to step in as head coach for one game on Nov. 23. It was a reschedule of a previously postponed match, and it happened to fall on the day when Diseth was getting married.
LRSC wound up losing 6-2 to Dakota College at Bottineau that day, but it gave Kempel a taste of what it’s like to be a head coach. And he had LRSC men’s hockey coach Brady Stein and baseball coach Steve Anderson on the side to help him out.
“I think it went well,” Kempel said after the game. “I think there’s some things that I need to work on, and the team needs to work on.”
The LRSC women’s hockey program is in just its second year of existence. The team was coached by another Devils Lake native, Logan Kraft, in its inaugural season, before Diseth was announced as the new coach in April. The Royals went 7-12 in their first year, a more-than-respectable record for a brand new program.
But they still needed direction.
“I remember sitting up in the stands and telling one of the assistant coaches for the high school team, ‘They need a coach,’” Diseth said. “And, not to say that I was overzealous, but I think I could do it.”
The whole experience has been an adjustment for not just Kempel, but also for Diseth, who has more than a decade of coaching experience but has never been a head college coach.
“I think coming into this, it’s like, well, what do I have as a 30-year-old man, and what do I know as a 30-year old man, about coaching 20-year-old women?” Diseth said. “And you kind of worry about some of the things that you don’t know, or that are gonna be different.”
Diseth and Kempel have taken the task head-on, knowing that building a college program is difficult and that succeeding is even harder. But Diseth has been adamant about not shying away from the challenge.
“It makes me think about some of the changes that you make in your life that you think about what’s gonna go wrong, or what’s gonna be tough about it,” Diseth said. “And we tend not to think about what’s gonna go absolutely wildly right in your favor.”
Diseth noted how impressed he’s been with the players’ work ethic, consistently showing up before him in the weight room and displaying a passion and drive. Dedication is an absolute must for things to work out on everybody’s end, with women coming all the way from South Dakota, Montana and Canada to play for the Royals.
“I keep telling the girls, ‘History is what it is, but you’re here to create a legacy,’” Diseth said. “And that legacy starts with the foundation in the first year, and the first couple of freshman and sophomore classes to go through here.”
Then there’s recruiting, which is another massive undertaking unique to the college level. High school coaching is all about developing kids who are already local to the area, while college coaching is largely about finding the right players across a much wider net.
“I didn’t know how I was gonna like recruiting; I love it, to be honest with you,” Diseth said. “I get to talk to kids at a certain point in their life where they’re unsure about what the next level is, and what the next experience is gonna be.”
Diseth said he likes how Devils Lake sits in a central location for recruiting, which reaches all the way from Calgary to Montreal. He’s even talking to a couple players from the Hungarian national team.
“It’s honestly a privilege, because I don’t think a lot of kids in high school know what to expect or what the college experience is like until they get here,” Diseth said. “Some of my girls have been really resourceful and really helpful in explaining what it’s like — what student life and hockey life is like down here.”
On the ice this season, the Royals have been led by sophomore Veronica Asquith, who has 14 goals and 17 points in 10 games played. Asquith has been with LRSC for both of the program’s first two years.
“She knows the game really well,” Kempel said. “She grinds. She’s always been a grinder.”
Diseth stressed her intelligence and speed as to what makes her game so powerful.
“She’s honestly probably the best women’s hockey player I’ve ever had the privilege to coach,” Diseth said. “She understands hockey; she doesn’t use gas when she doesn’t need to, and then turns the burners on when she needs to… I tell you, as a coach, when the puck’s on her stick, I have the most confidence in the world… She’s going a lot further than just here.”
Manning the net for LRSC has been Jaelyn Buckman, a native of Cando, North Dakota. She has a save rate of 88.4%.
The Royals won back-to-back games against Augustana to start the season. They’ve still had to deal with some low-numbers problems, even forfeiting a game where they didn’t have enough healthy skaters. They took five losses in a row before bouncing back with back-to-back wins over the University of Nebraska club team. After two tough losses to a strong Assiniboine Community College squad, they sit at 4-8 heading into the new year.
It’s been as much of a learning experience for the coaches as it’s been for the players. And despite how young Kempel is, Diseth praised the knowledge he brings to the club.
“He’s forgotten about more hockey than I’ve even ever known myself,” Diseth said. “He’s on top of things. He’s like a Swiss Army Knife for our team. He’s always kind of doing those other things while I’m maintaining strategy and stuff like that. But he’s a high-level coach, and kind of our manager. He’s going a long way. He’s gonna go a long way in coaching.”
Kempel is keeping perspective, too, given that he’s so young and still so early in his coaching career. The ups and downs he experiences as a coach right now should only build him into more of a leader in the future.
“I just want to learn and get the experience,” Kempel said. “Kind of build, learn from my mistakes and keep going with what I have going. I think that it’ll go well.”
The LRSC women’s hockey team plays Montana State University on the road on Jan. 10 and 11, then returns home for another matchup with Bottineau on Jan. 23.
