MUSKEGON – Tuesday will be a bittersweet day for longtime Muskegon Lumberjacks off-ice official Nick Howard.

One the one hand, it will be an exciting day, because the Lumberjacks will be hosting the second game of their first-round playoff series at Mercy Health Arena, and Howard has always lived for playoff hockey.

But Tuesday will also be the 19^th anniversary of his mother’s death, and the hockey game will be a poignant reminder. Marilyn Howard and her husband Pat Howard always loved Muskegon hockey, and first introduced their son to the sport when he was very young.

Mrs. Howard was still attending a lot of Muskegon Fury games during the 2002-03 season, until about the final month, when her health no longer allowed her to leave home very much.

“My parents were season ticket holders for a long time with the Fury,” Howard said. “They had season tickets at the top of section 104, and before that in section B, when they used to have the bleachers. My mom still went as much as she could.

“She was sick, but we didn’t know how sick she was. She had cancer. The season ended on a Saturday that year, and a week later she was gone.”

Howard still remembers the night in the 80s, when he was under five years old, and his parents took him to a Muskegon Lumberjacks game, back when the Jacks were a pro team and the top farm club of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The San Diego Chicken, the famous mascot of the San Diego Padres, was appearing at the game that night.

“I fell in love with hockey that night,” said Howard, who recently turned 40. “I still have the stuffed San Diego Chicken I got at that game, somewhere in my house. It’s a pretty cool keepsake.”

Fun-filled Fury years

The San Diego Chicken game began Howard’s passionate connection with Muskegon hockey that’s nearing the three-decade mark.

He became an instant fan along with his parents, eventually found his way into the Muskegon Fury Fan Club, and started to get to know some team officials by the time he was a teen.

One of those officials was Fury broadcaster Terry Ficorelli, who invited Howard to be his intern assistant in 1996, when he was still in high school. That unpaid internship ended up lasting 11 seasons. with Howard advancing from teen intern to public relations assistant to communications assistant.

It became a career of sorts for Howard, a 2000 graduate of Muskegon High School who said he specialized in “lunch time and absenteeism” in school.

“I would take game notes, keep stats, field media calls and do miscellaneous stuff in the office,” Howard said. “I helped out wherever I was needed. Sometimes I would go help the trainer or the equipment manager. No two days were ever the same.”

Howard, a very personable guy who makes friends easily, started getting to know the players and pretty much everyone in the Fury organization, and soon became a familiar part of the downtown hockey operation.

He became close to legendary players like Robin Bouchard, Scott Feasby, Todd Robinson and many others. He got to know the coaches, Todd Nelson and Rich Kromm, and even the Fury owner, Tony Lisman.

“I got to know Tony really well,” Howard said. “He taught me that you should expect to win, no matter what you’re doing in life. That was a heck of a lesson. Expect to win, and at least always do your best, and you will feel like you’re winning.”

Howard worked the home games, keeping stats in the press box and doing whatever the team wanted him to do.

For road games he was still 100 percent fan, and found a way to get to lots of games in other Michigan cities like Flint, Kalamazoo and Port Huron, and even many out-of-state games, riding with friends and family.

He laughs when he recalls one game in Flint, when Coach Kromm became disgusted with the referee and demonstrated his anger by littering the ice at the IMA Sports Arena.

“Sergii Kharin (a Fury player) had three goals disallowed by that referee that weekend, and Kromm finally had it,” Howard said. “He emptied the entire stick rack on the ice.”

Howard’s best rewards for his loyalty to the team were the four Colonial Cup championships the Fury won during those years.

He was at the arena for what was perhaps the most famous goal in Muskegon hockey history, when Todd Robinson scored a breakaway goal in overtime of Game 6 of the 2002 finals to clinch the cup.

He was in Emira, New York and Fort Wayne, Indiana for other championship-clinching games.

One game he couldn’t get to was in Moline, Illinois in 1999, when the Fury were playing the Quad City Mallards in Game 6 of the finals. Quad City led after two periods and was on the verge of forcing a Game 7, but the Fury rallied down the stretch to win, clinch the series and claim the Colonial Cup.

The next morning Howard was downtown at the arena, waiting for the team bus to get back. Right away he ran into some Quad City fans who had left their arena in Illinois after the second period the night before and drove straight to Muskegon, believing their team had won.

There was little in the way of internet back then, and the fans had no way of knowing that their Mallards had collapsed and the season was over.

Howard was very happy to break the bad news to them.

“They were waiting outside to get tickets, and we went and bought a Chronicle and handed it them,” Howard said. “At about the same time, our team bus pulls up and the players get out with the cup. Those people couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

“The championships were the best part of it all, by far. Every one of them was different.”

Howard received a shock late in the 2008-09 season, when the old Lumberjacks (the Fury name had been dropped two seasons before) announced they were moving to Evansville, Indiana, ending a nearly 50-year run of pro hockey in Muskegon.

He was at the arena working that day and heard from the players when they received the startling news.

“I happened to be at the rink when it was announced,” Howard said.  “I found out before the media did. It was on my birthday. I was crushed. They were having such a good year, and Muskegon was always a big minor league pro hockey town. It was depressing.

“It was the end of an era. It turned out to be the end of the playing careers of a lot of my friends on the team. Bouchard never played another pro game after that. I’m still a minor league pro guy. That’s what I prefer for hockey. It’s what I grew up on.”

Filling the press box with volunteers

Howard was not excited when the new Muskegon Lumberjacks – a Tier 1 junior development team in the United States Hockey League – moved in and replaced the pro team.

He had no intention of being affiliated with the team until the late Ralph Burr, who was the supervisor of off-ice officials for the pro team, took the same role with the new Lumberjacks and invited him to come back.

“I didn’t have a choice,” Howard said. “Ralph Burr asked and I was there. I had that much respect for him. He was almost like another grandfather to me.”

So Howard was back in the press box again, keeping stats, and within a few years accepted the role of supervisor of off-ice officials. Suddenly it was his job to make sure all the volunteer positions were filled on every game night – everything from stat keepers to goal judges, penalty box attendants and timekeepers.

It wasn’t always easy to find people to do all those jobs every game, and Howard frequently found himself working the games, as well.

His challenge was compounded in 2016, when the West Michigan Ironmen arena football team kicked off, and he assumed similar duties with that franchise.

“Some games are easier than others,” Howard said about finding volunteers. “Weekday games are always challenging. It all works out in the end, somehow, but it can be stressful until everyone is there.”

Howard stepped aside as the sole off-ice supervisor for the Lumberjacks a couple of years ago, and now shares the role with Pat Burke. Howard recruits the staff upstairs in the press box while Burke finds the goal judges, penalty box attendants and timekeepers.

Howard has grown close to a lot of the other longtime off-ice officials who serve the Lumberjacks, season after season – people like Ernie Addicott, Rick Belasco, Dennis Roper, Jeff Allen, Ron Linstrom and others.

“It’s fun,” he said. “We all get along great up there in the press  box. We joke around and give each other grief – we’re almost like our own dysfunctional family!”

One newer addition to the press box crew arrived a few years ago – Pat Howard, Nick’s father. They work together in the Ironmen press box, as well, sharing their mutual love for Muskegon sports.

“He started when I was shorthanded one night,” Howard said about his dad. “I basically told him he didn’t have an option – he was helping me. It’s been pretty special for me, sharing something like this with my dad.”

The most amazing part of Howard’s longtime service is that he’s never been paid. The team provides volunteer off-ice officials with game tickets for friends and family, as well as food, but there is no money involved.

It’s the love of Muskegon hockey that keeps Howard going. He has grown to appreciate the current Lumberjacks and all the other teams in the USHL, which develop some of the most talented young players in the world.

“The hockey is so good,” he said. “People don’t realize how much talent there is on the ice every night. There are so many players who get drafted by NHL teams and we end up watching them play on TV.”

Howard is eager to experience another championship. The current Lumberjacks have yet to win their first USHL Clark Cup, and he hopes that changes over the next few weeks as the Jacks dive into the playoffs.

The Lumberjacks will host Game 1 of their first-round playoff series on Monday night, against either Cedar Rapids or Team USA.

“It’s been a long time,” Howard said. “It’s been like 17 years without a hockey championship in Muskegon. It would be nice to get back to the winning ways again and put another banner up in the old building!”