The Kitchener Rangers are preparing for the next Ontario Hockey League season, and have quickly received more than enough offers for new billet families.
Every year the Rangers put out the call for billets. They have many families that return to it and even more that want to get involved. A handful of new billets were needed for the upcoming 2025-26 season, and the Rangers have already received ample offers.
“The only exception are local players. So, Matthew Sop stayed at home, as a recent example. And that’s true, I think across all junior hockey,” explained Michael Zsolt, Assistant General Manager of the Kitchener Rangers.
“We’re a major junior in the CHL (Canadian Hockey League). But then there’s the Ontario Junior Hockey League, the GOJHL, the NOJHL. So across the province, there’s thousands of really generous people taking in players as billets,”
Zsolt said billet families are a major part of the entire league, as many players are moving away from home at 16 years old and living in a place they’ve never been before. But Rangers officials say they are lucky to not have to struggle finding billet families.
“That’s part of why it’s so great to have the interest we do. We’re really lucky in Kitchener. I think not every team has the support that we have,” Zsolt said.
The Billet experience
Cailin and Brian Daub have been billets for the Rangers for 27 years now, welcoming 24 different players into their home.
This upcoming season, the Daubs are welcoming Slovakian Jakub Chromiak back into their home.
“We treat them as like Jakub, the young man, not Jakub, the Kitchener Ranger – trying to make them realize they’re important outside of their hockey role,” Cailin said.
“All the players are so different. sometimes they love to talk about the game afterwards, sometimes some guys don’t want to talk about the game at all. So, you kind of have to get to know where they’re at,” Brian added.
It started when they both saw an ad in the newspaper and liked the idea.
“They needed an emergency home. At that time, we lived close to the Auditorium. So that’s how we called to inquire. There were some boys who needed a place in an emergency situation. So they came three days later and they’ve never left,” Cailin said.
The Daubs had a two-year-old and a five-year-old at the time, but say their kids looked at the players as a brother. Their daughter started including her billet brothers in her school work.
“She had drawn our hockey player in the family picture. So that was kind of like, ‘oh, so they considered them to be just a part of our family as well’,” Cailin said.
Along with Chromiak, their family is also welcoming Christian Kirsch this upcoming season, the newest goalie on the team coming from Switzerland.
“We’re both looking forward to having them this August,” Brian said.
Billet families must meet certain requirements before being selected. The team considers things like if the player has siblings at home or any kind of allergies.
The hosts receive $135 a week and season tickets, but there are expectations.
“Obviously a safe environment, a caring environment. We provide their meals, we do their laundry, we help them with whatever they need help with,” Cailin said.
While the Daubs aren’t hockey fanatics, they’ve made lasting relationships and had experiences they’ll never forget, including attending World Junior Events and making friends with families all over Europe.
Brian was even invited to dad’s weekend by Radek Faksa, who they had previously billet and now plays for the Dallas Star.
“I went to Dallas and we did a bunch of things with the whole team and [went] to a bunch of different games. That was a once in a lifetime experience. Just the fact that he asked me to do that was probably the most special thing that he could have done,” Brian recalled.
But it’s the 24 new family members that they really cherish.
“We’ve been to weddings and we’ve been with them going through having kids now. There’s all sorts of experiences that we’ve had because of the billeting experience,” Brian said.
“Jakub went to the World Juniors last year. So we drove them to the airport for that and, you know, those little goodbyes are really important to us.”
“[We] just love them to bits, like that’s the easy part for me. Just finding things that they enjoy and trying to work some of those things into their day, whether it’s the baking they like or we had one player who liked doing puzzles,” said Cailin.
The Rangers said despite having a full compliment of billet families for the upcoming season, there’s always movement in the league, and opportunity for others to get involved in the future.
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