Cougars and Spruce Kings on the lookout for billets

Two local hockey teams are looking for families to open their doors to players coming in from out of town.

The Prince George Spruce Kings and PG’s WHL team, the Cougars are each accepting billet applications.

Billets for both teams are compensated financially, and are primarily responsible for housing and feeding the players.

According to Marina Turgeon, Billet Coordinator for the PG Spruce Kings, they’re in need of seven new homes before the end of the month.

Meanwhile, Andy Beesley, Vice President of the Prince George Cougars says they have a pretty great community of billet families, but they’re still looking for two or three more homes.

“We have a very good list of people who want to continue to billet for us but we’re also looking for a few extras just to make sure we’ve got enough to fill our needs,” he said.

Beesley adds billeting is so much more than just offering a place to stay, and requires the team to find their players a place to stay that really suits them.

“In our case we’re very anxious to match the players to the family, so we don’t just stick a kid in a house just because there’s an empty bedroom. We very much like to make sure that the payer’s going to fit nicely with the family and understand that these billet homes are in fact family and families for our players while they’re away from their family,” he explained.

According to Beesley, former NHL player and current Cougars co-owner Dan Hamhuis would visit his billet family during his trips to Prince George.

Turgeon says the most important job of a billet is to make the player feels like part of their family.

“I typically look around to see where (the billet) is planning to put the player, if they have a separate bedroom, bathroom if they’ve got their own type of living area as well, some houses and don’t but I mean it’s more making sure that the player has privacy,” explained Turgeon.

She says she likes to match players’ personalities with the families and find out how passionate the family is about being a billet before matching the player with a home.

Turgeon has been working as the Billet Coordinator for 4 years and has been offering her home to players for the last seven years.

She says during her time billeting she has had some wonderful times welcoming players into her home.

“As a billet, you just try and make your home their home. You make them feel like they’re a part of the family. Our billet that’s returning has been wonderful with our daughter, who is twenty years old with Down Syndrome. He comes up and hangs out watching TV with my husband and I, he comes up and hangs out with our daughter and watches movies with her and he’ll play games with her,” she explained.

She adds billets plays a really special role in the Spruce Kings community.

Billet applications for the Prince George Spruce Kings can be found here, while applications for the Cougars can be found here.