Greenville, S.C. — Now that the offseason is underway with the 2024-25 season coming up, the ECHL is seeing an influx of players going overseas for next season. Today, June 20, it was reported that Swamp Rabbits’ star forward Brett Kemp will be heading overseas to play in the ICEHL. Kemp, 24, has had a remarkable career in hockey as a left-wing forward. At just 6’0, the forward has made an impact in the ECHL — the Greenville Swamp Rabbits. First turning pro during the 2021-22 season, the Yorkton, Saskatchewan native would play two games for the Ontario Reign before getting sent down to the ECHL to play 30 games for the Swamp Rabbits. This was before Ontario was officially affiliated with the Rabbits, but stars like Jacob Ingham, Kemp, and Nikita Pavlychev, among others, would get the calls from the Reign. In his first season with the Rabbits, the 30 games played would draw him a record of 17 goals and 20 assists for 37 points; for a rookie in his first season, that record isn’t bad. For the following season, Kemp would have yet another good one for Greenville – playing 46 games, tallying up 24 goals and 21 assists while getting a call-up to Ontario midseason to play four games. For last season, he would get two call-ups from two different AHL teams, the first being the San Jose Barracuda.
Before getting that call-up to California again, Kemp would play ten games and shine bright as a power forward for the Rabbits — tallying up four goals and ten assists. During his call-up, Kemp would end up playing on the second and even first line for the Barracuda and record a goal and four assists for 14 games. And then his time in California would once again end as he would get sent down to Greenville. The send-down wouldn’t affect Kemp at first, as his first game back would give him an assist. Before March 6, he would record four goals and seven assists for fourteen games. After that day, Kemp would get his last AHL call-up of the season to the Manitoba Moose, where he would play just ten games and record only a pair of assists. Unfortunately for him, he would get dumped back to Greenville to finish out the season. That final PTO conclusion would slowly weigh on him, as approaching the playoffs, we would see a downward slope of performance. And that consequently resulted in a poor playoff performance, as he played just a single game during the Orlando-Greenville round one series. The send-downs definitely got the best of Kemp. Despite his play style and impressive record, he just couldn’t make the cut for a full-time spot in the American League, and that ultimately made him go to Europe next season to play for the Vienna Capitals. In his three pro seasons, he played 112 for Greenville (112 points for 51 goals and 61 assists), six for Ontario (one assist), and 30 in total in the AHL (8 points).
The Capitals play in Vienna, Austria, at Erste Bank Arena with a seating capacity of up to 7K, and have been part of the ICEHL since 2001.
ITR 35: Round One – Inside The Rink
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