http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=3925&u_sid=10634665

Who will follow Kemp?
BY ROB WHITE
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

UNO’s search for a new hockey coach begins immediately, and the Mavericks are ready.

“Everybody is under consideration,” Athletic Director Trev Alberts said. “I think we’re going to find out, nationally, that this is a job that is really well respected. It’s well respected because Coach (Mike) Kemp is involved in this program.”

The Mavs will search high and low for their next coach, but a couple of men with longtime Omaha ties jump to the forefront of most speculation: former Omaha Lancers coach Mike Hastings and former UNO assistant David Quinn.

Hastings, who has the most coaching victories in United States Hockey League history, was 529-210-56 in 14 seasons with the Lancers before leaving for an assistant’s job at Minnesota last year. He was twice the league’s coach of the year and was the general manager of the year five times.

Quinn was Kemp’s top assistant during the program’s early years. He has spent the past five seasons as associate head coach at Boston University, which just won the national championship.

“They are both qualified coaches who have a history in the community and a history with the program,” Kemp said. “Mike was more peripheral as coach of the Lancers, but I’ve had a longstanding relationship with Mike and those individuals, amongst others, are going to be people given serious consideration.”

Neither Quinn nor Hastings returned phone calls Thursday night.

Kemp will serve on the committee to find the new coach, along with Alberts, Assistant Athletic Director Don Leahy, women’s basketball coach Patty Patton Shearer, faculty athletic representative Bill Wakefield, hockey captain Mark Bernier and a member of the community.

Other names generating a buzz in coaching circles are former Lancers coach Mike Guentzel, an assistant at Colorado College who was a finalist at UNO when Kemp was hired; former North Dakota coach Dean Blais, who won two national championships with the Fighting Sioux and is now coaching Fargo of the USHL; New Hampshire assistant David Lassonde; and Miami (Ohio) assistant Chris Bergeron, who helped put together a Frozen Four team.

Kemp said the uncertainty of his job status as coach hasn’t affected the overall health of the program.

“I don’t think we’ve lost a lot of ground,” he said. “My assistants have done a great job keeping our program going in the right direction. They’ve done a tremendous job mentoring our current players, and they’ve done a great job keeping our recruiting alive.”

Kemp said he knows he’ll miss coaching and wouldn’t rule out coaching again somewhere, sometime. For now, though, he expressed excitement for his new post.

“There are so many things you are involved with that are peripheral to coaching the game,” Kemp said. “I’ll be able to do that for the next coach, and he’ll be able to focus strictly on coaching and recruiting. We can work together to make sure that we build something here that is incredible.”