MUSKEGON – It’s been a whirlwind season of change and fresh challenges for Parker Burgess, the new head coach of the Muskegon Lumberjacks.

Last summer he was expecting to start this third season as head coach of the Janesville Jets of the North American Hockey League. He had recently added the title of assistant general manager with that team, and figured he was settled in for a while.

Then in August he accepted a sudden offer to become the associate head coach of the Lumberjacks when the job opened up. Burgess arrived in Muskegon just in time for the first day of the Jacks’ training camp, expecting to spend the season in the important but secondary coaching role.

Then change came again a few weeks ago when the Lumberjacks and longtime head coach Mike Hamilton – the guy who recruited Burgess to Muskegon – parted ways midway through his fifth season.

Burgess was asked to become the new head coach, and suddenly he was in charge of a promising group of Lumberjacks who had been playing well, but did not expect to lose their head coach at midseason.

He was also in charge of a shorthanded team that had four top players – Jake Richard, Ethan Whitcomb, Gavin McCarthy and Nathan McBrayer – spending several weeks in Canada playing for the American team in the World Junior A Challenge tournament.

Burgess stepped into his new assignment with the calm demeanor of an experienced head coach. He encouraged the players to keep their focus on hockey instead of things that were beyond their control, and guided the team through the last five games before the long Christmas break.

Burgess admits the situation was a bit awkward at first. He only directed one team practice before coaching his first game on Dec. 9, but said it’s just like any other job in sports – you have to be ready when your number is called.

“It’s almost like what a player goes through,” said Burgess, whose team will emerge from the holiday break with an away game on Friday night, followed by a New Year’s Eve home game against Team USA on Saturday at 6 p.m. “You might be a second-line center or a backup goalie, then if the guy ahead of you is injured or traded or cut, you might go through a short time where it’s a little bit awkward, but that quickly changes to excitement about a new opportunity.”

Steady progression through the coaching profession

Burgess grew up in Calgary, Alberta, played junior hockey in Western Canada, then came to the U.S. to play college hockey at Robert Morris University in Pennsylvania before transferring to St. Thomas University in Minnesota.

After four years of college hockey, he stayed on as a graduate assistant coach at St. Thomas for 2 ½ years before he was promoted to full-time assistant.

He then became the head coach at tiny Nichols College in Massachusetts, where over five seasons he turned the program into an NCAA Division 3 national power.

He became the head coach in Janesville, a Wisconsin city just south of Madison, in 2020, and had a lot of success with the NAHL team.

The Jets were great in his first season, posting a 31-13-4 regular season record and winning the Midwest Division championship. His coaching performance may have been even more impressive in his second season when the team, with many new players, got off to a terrible 3-12 start, then turned things around with an 11-game winning streak.

Janesville finished one point shy of earning a playoff berth, which was pretty impressive, considering the team’s rough start.

“Our first year we were awesome,” Burgess said. “We had really good players and won a lot of games. The next year we lost a lot of players to the USHL and college and started out badly, but then we had the 11-game winning streak and almost made the playoffs.

“It’s a really successful organization there. Their approach is pretty similar to what we have here in Muskegon – they are centered on the development of young players while also pursuing competitive excellence and championships. I gained a lot of great experience there.”

Hamilton reached out to Burgess just before the start of training camp this season and lured him to the Lumberjacks.

On the one hand, Burgess was taking a slight step backward, returning to ranks of assistant coaches after seven years as a head coach in college and the NAHL. On the other hand, the USHL is a Tier 1 junior hockey league, a step above the NAHL, so he decided to move into the higher league and see where it led him.

“Yes and no,” he said, when asked if it was tough to step back into a secondary coaching role this fall. “It had been seven years since I had been an assistant, and maybe there was a little trepidation, but I knew the staff here in Muskegon, and sometimes taking a step back from a head coaching role can give you a fresh perspective. You get to work one-on-one with the players and focus just on hockey. As a head coach there are a lot of things that can take you away from the hockey part of it.

“It all happened pretty quickly, and now I’m back in this role (as a head coach).”

Excited about the rest of the season

Burgess coached the shorthanded Jacks in five games before the long Christmas break, when they posted a 1-3-1 record with a season-long four-game winless streak.

Overall he was pleased with the way the team responded to all the sudden challenges. The best part came in his first weekend as head coach, when the Jacks posted an exciting 4-3 victory over the Team USA 17-Under squad on Friday night, then had a late rally against first-place Chicago and lost a 5-4 thriller on Saturday.

Burgess thought the holiday break came at the perfect time for everyone on the team, after everything that happened.

“For the players, for the staff, it was a good opportunity for us to reset and recover,” he said. “A lot of the players are a long way from home, for some it’s their first time away from home, so this was a good chance for them to go back and spend time with friends and family. It was a pretty hectic first half of the season, so it was nice to get that break.”

Now with the games set to begin again, and most of the players back with the team, the coach is looking for a fresh start and is optimistic about the rest of the season.

The Jacks, 12-11-2, are in fourth place in the eight-team USHL Eastern Conference with 26 points. They are two points behind third-place Green Bay and three behind second-place Team USA, but 12 behind first-place Chicago.

The Jacks are loaded with talent and a lot of potential to have a great second half, and Burgess thinks they can be serious contenders to win the team’s first Clark Cup championship.

“We absolutely have a contender on our hands,” said Burgess, whose team has 37 regular season games remaining on the schedule. “We’re just searching and striving for consistency. I know, if I were a rival coach, I wouldn’t want to play us when we are clicking. The wins and losses will take care of themselves. We just want to make sure we are playing good hockey down the stretch.”

At the young age of 37, Burgess knows his career could take him in any number of directions in the coming years.

He’s pretty certain about one thing – his future lies in the United States.

Burgess is going through the legal process of becoming an American citizen, while also maintaining his Canadian citizenship, He expects to have dual citizenship sometime in 2023.

“I spent my first 20 years in Canada, and now I’ve spent 17 years in the U.S.,” he said. “I’m soon to become an American citizen. I’m only a few months away.”

When asked to name the town that he considers his permanent residence, Burgess said “Muskegon, Michigan.” He said he’s planning on returning to the Lumberjacks next season – if team officials want him back – and possibly beyond that.

He said he and his wife Jessie and son Bowman have already developed an attachment to Muskegon and would be comfortable with a lengthy stay, if everything goes well.

“That’s the plan,” he said, when asked if he would be back for the 2023-24 season. “That’s a question that would be better answered by Steve Lowe (the Jacks’ president of hockey operations) and Jimmy McGroarty (the team’s general manager), but I think we share the same vision of where we want to take this team.

“I really try to take things one year at a time. In this profession, you might have a vision or goals, but you have to be where your feet are at and focus on doing a good job. I know my family and I really love Muskegon – the rink, the resources and the people –  and we can see ourselves being here a long time.”