When hockey players make a major junior or an elite U18 hockey team and have to move away from home to play, they need a place to stay.
That’s where billet families come into play. A billet family will take in the player and treat him or her just like they were their own child. They give them a place to stay, sleep, eat, but also a place to grow and develop as a player and a person. And many times in the process, that ‘second family’ slowly becomes just another part of the family.
“It forms lifelong relationships with everybody involved,” said Dean Friedt, billet coordinator for the Prince Albert Raiders, and a longtime billet father himself. “Once they become part of your family, it’s hard to see them go when they move on after their stay in Prince Albert.”