It was a goal Landon Fandel had been waiting for his entire life. Except, at one point, he didn’t even think it would be possible.
“I’d say growing up, moving on to play hockey out of Sioux Falls wasn’t ever really a thing. Like you kind of just, you played Flyers through high school, and then pretty much everyone’s just done after that,” Fandel said.
But when the freshman defenseman scored for Augustana against Bemidji State on Dec. 7, he represented the culmination of something — the arrival of South Dakota as a viable place to develop hockey players, and to give those players the opportunity to play Division I college hockey in their home state. Fandel is the first South Dakotan to score a goal for South Dakota’s only college hockey team — the importance of which is not lost on his coach.
“One of the first questions I was asked, after I concluded my press conference, my first day on campus, was, ‘When are you going to recruit South Dakota players?’” Augustana coach Garret Raboin said. “And I said, ‘Well, whenever they’re good enough.’ And Landon Fandel was the first one, and there’ll be more down the line. He’s come up through local minor hockey and went on to junior hockey, played both the North American league and the USHL. He’s really taken the right steps preparing himself for college hockey, and we’ve really enjoyed him since he’s been on campus.”
Fandel, who was born and raised in Sioux Falls, played his youth hockey for the Sioux Falls Flyers and then moved on to the Sioux Falls Power AAA program before moving to the Bismarck Bobcats of the NAHL and the Tri-Cities Storm of the USHL before finally ending up right where it all started.
“I mean, honestly, it’s unbelievable being here, being back in Sioux Falls, and having the support from the city as well as the campus,” Fandel said. “I mean, man, when the students are on campus, they’re there at the games, and they’re filling up the student section, and it’s super cool to see.”
Until suffering an injury in December, Fandel had been a big contributor to Augustana’s success this season, scoring two goals and two assists through 11 games. He expects to be back this weekend.
“His season stalled out a little bit due to injury, but he’s coming back. He was really in a good spot leading up to that point,” Raboin said. “He’s just.. it means more to him being from this community. To have hockey here in his hometown, at the Division I level, is probably something he never could have imagined. But he’s living on a dream and he’s contributing too, which is awesome.”
South Dakota hockey participation growing
According to numbers from Jayson Hajdu of College Hockey Inc., 10 different South Dakotans have suited up for Division I college hockey teams since they started tracking that data in 2011-12 (this includes current Augustana assistant Brady Ferner of Dakota Dunes, who played for RPI from 2018-2021 and North Dakota from 2021-2022). Currently there are three: Aside from Fandel, Easton Zuger of Sioux Falls is a junior at Army and Aidan VanRooyan of Dakota Dunes plays for Sacred Heart.
That number should increase to four next season, when Carter Sanderson of Sioux Falls is scheduled to join North Dakota. Sanderson has already made history as the first South Dakotan to be drafted. The Pittsburgh Penguins took him in the sixth round with the 169th overall pick of the 2025 NHL Draft.
Raboin said when he arrived in Sioux Falls in 2022, he didn’t realize the full scope of the participation numbers.
“When I first got to town, what surprised me was how many youth kids were actually playing,” he said. “There’s a complex called the Ice Plex across town with three youth rinks. I was aware of the USHL team with the Stampede and the Sioux Falls Power, the tier one program, but I didn’t understand the Sioux Falls Flyers, how strong the numbers were at the youth level, and, you know, bringing three young kids to town, getting them involved in youth hockey, I quickly found out that there was a real appetite, especially at the youth level, to participate.”
According to numbers from USA Hockey, there were 3,034 registered hockey players in the state of South Dakota for 2024-25 (the most recent data available), with the vast majority of those (2,855) under the age of 18. This obviously pales in comparison to its neighbor to the east, Minnesota (59,457) but also with its fellow Dakota to the north (7,272). But, thanks in no small part to Augustana, that’s changing.
“Having that program, and the success of that program is having, to me, it’s only going to make younger kids want to play hockey in the state of South Dakota,” said Aberdeen Wings coach and general manager Scott Langer.
Langer moved to Aberdeen in 2016 and aside from a one-season stint with the Fargo Force in 2021-22 has been with the Wings ever since. “I got here about seven, eight years ago, and when I got here the numbers all over the place looked kind of down, but now you just continue to watch them grow every year. Honestly, having the Sioux Falls Stampede and USHL, the Aberdeen Wings and the NHL, and then, you know, Augustana in Division 1 college hockey. I think eventually this is going to be a state of hockey players that you see grow and move on.”
Although neither the NAHL or USHL officially tracks player hometowns and where they were raised, Langer did some research with some others involved with hockey in South Dakota and was able to come up with 21 South Dakota-born-and-raised players who have competed in the NAHL in the past 20 years. Another spokesperson for the Sioux Falls Stampede said they were able to estimate that there were nine South Dakotans who have played in the USHL since 2000.
Ice, weather an issue
Despite being close geographically and culturally to its neighbor Minnesota, South Dakota’s hockey culture had a bit of a handicap to start. There’s no real tradition of pond hockey like there is in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
“It’s different from Minnesota, because with the wind and the weather conditions, the outdoor hockey isn’t as big, and although there’s a few outdoor hockey rinks around, it’s not nearly as common as it is in some other areas. But, you think of guys that have transformed quonsets or old barns and put ice down. I think it started like that, and it’s consistently grown. And now there’s legitimate resources for youth hockey players to take advantage of.”
Another issue is the lack of year-round ice. Aberdeen, for instance, only has ice at the Odde Ice Center from September to May. Aberdeen is about 200 miles from Sioux Falls, which means locals wanting to skate year round have to go three hours one way to find it.
Still, despite this lack of year-round ice in places like Aberdeen, the local community still embraces its hockey teams.
Augustana freshman Leonid Bulgakov was surprised when he arrived in Aberdeen to play for Langer in 2023. The native of Minsk, Belarus, didn’t speak much English when he arrived in America and his first impressions of South Dakota were the flat landscape and small-town culture shock. Despite that shock, Bulgakov came to fall in love with Aberdeen.
“What was really exciting and surprised me is that every person knew the hockey players in Aberdeen. You go into the store and everyone is looking at you or saying, ‘Hey, great game,’ or something like that,” Bulgakov said. “I think it’s partly because of the small town and everyone knows each other, but on the other side it’s still really cool that they actually recognize you and appreciate what you’re doing.”
His love of South Dakota was one of the main reasons why he decided to commit to Augustana very quickly after he arrived — the proximity of Augustana’s campus to the passionate hockey community was a big selling point for him. And so far, the move to remain close to his “American” home paid off. His 14 goals in 29 games so far this season lead the Vikings and is already the program’s single-season leader.
The Vikings, currently 18-9-3 overall, are locked in an exciting four-way battle for the CCHA regular season title and are on the NCAA tournament bubble for the first time in the program’s short history. That meteoric success can only continue to increase the enthusiasm for more hockey players in South Dakota, which in turn will help Augustana grow as a brand and a destination for the elite local players.
“We’re seeing a lot of first-time fans,” Raboin said. “There’s a lot of people new to hockey that are learning the sport, and as we move along, you’re seeing people that are coming from a little bit further. They’re coming from Rapid City, they’re coming from Omaha. They’re making the trip for the weekend to spend in Sioux Falls, and it’s a tremendous community. I mean, you work your weekend around the hockey game, but there’s so much to do around here, and they really can make it worthwhile to take the time to come our way.”
Langer says he’s already seeing kids interested in playing hockey because they’ve seen Augustana play, both in person and on TV statewide. And he knows that will only help the development of players in South Dakota overall.
“I think as time goes on, with people wearing that logo all over the state, hockey’s going to continue to grow. And it takes things like that for people to realize, ‘Hey, I want to be a hockey player,’ and what’s going to happen is more of these kids that are going off and playing juniors, playing college hockey, they’re going to come back to the state of South Dakota,” he said. “And once they do, they’re going to be part of the development process, because they’ve already been through it at high levels, and now they’re going to be able to give back to the younger kids.
“So I think all that eventually, in five to 10 years, you’re going to see more players from the state of South Dakota on the Aberdeen Wings. You’re going to see more guys on the Sioux Falls Stampede. And obviously, if Garrett can take a local kid, you know he’s going to do it.”