Billet families react to announcement about 2021 WHL season

WHL billet families aren’t yet sure what the upcoming 2021 season will look like for them.

The league announced Friday it plans to return to play with each team playing a 24-game schedule.

However, the WHL has not yet announced details like a start date or whether teams will play in their home cities, depending on what health authorities decide.

Some billet families, who host out-of-town players during hockey season, are hopeful they’ll be able to have their players back in their home.

Shelley Hellquist is a billet mom for the Regina Pats. Defenceman Makai Mitchell has stayed with her family since the 2018 season.

Mitchell and the family are very close, so him staying home in Colorado when the start of the 2020-21 season was delayed was difficult.

“He has become a part of the family. He’s like a son to me and my husband, and a big brother to my daughter,” Hellquist said.

While the announcement that the league will return this year is a welcome one, she is staying cautiously optimistic.

“Since March last year (when the rest of the 2019-20 season was cancelled), everything has been a little bit weird. You set your expectations and think you’re going to get a season, and then all of a sudden, it (doesn’t happen) and you’re disappointed. So you don’t want to get your hopes up too much,” she said.

“Who knows if they’re going to do a hub city or anything along those lines? So we might not get a chance to even have him in our home … We’re just patiently waiting to see how the season looks.”

For another billet family, the league’s decision on billets won’t matter.

Brent Stechyshyn has hosted players from the Swift Current Broncos for the past four years, but he’s making the decision not to take any in for 2021.

There are a variety of reasons, but the uncertainty around travel and COVID are big factors.

The three players who have stayed with him are European: Aleksi Heponiemi and Joona Kiviniemi from Finland, as well as Sergei Alkhimov from Russia.

Keeping up with European players would have been too difficult in terms of travel arrangements in these coronavirus times, and he’s also being careful about the virus.

“That was a concern and we have three kids in the house. All of that combined together makes things a little bit harder for us,” he said.

Still, just like Hellquist, he has missed hosting the players, who begin to feel like family.

“(The players) made our kids’ time more enjoyable, kind of like having an older sibling,” Stechyshyn said.

“It was a tough decision to make. Of course, we miss it, but we’ll still support our team when we get up and playing again.”