Welcome to Hampton Roads Junior Whaler Hockey. Becoming a host family for a Junior Whaler player is a great way to get involved in the community, as well as develop some very special bonds with the players and their families. For many of the players, this will be their first time away from home and they will need a stable living environment for their move to Virginia. Players on the Hampton Roads Junior Whalers are between the ages of 16 and 21 with the majority of them being 18 and 19 years old. Part of our commitment to our players and their parents is to help provide them with a good home. The players often become just like one of the family. It doesn't happen all the time – sometimes things just don't click – but it happens the majority of the time. These boys come into your lives at an early, impressionable age and leave as young men. Their time with the billet family is a very important time of their lives. They are away from their friends and family, so their billets become their surrogate family. The players arrive from all over the United States in mid August for training camp and will be here until the end of the hockey season in early March or until the end of the school year in June, depending on the player's school situation. At Christmas, they usually have 7-10 days off to go home and spend time with their families. 

When a family volunteers to house a member of the team, they are required to provide room and board for the player. This includes, providing nutritious food that is available for him to prepare or for the billets to prepare for the player. In addition, billets must be able to provide the player with his own room. Billets are expected to treat the players as "one of the family" and not just a "renter". The same goes for the player, as far as cleaning up after themselves and keeping their room tidy and such.
We have team guidelines and policies that the players must abide by with our organization, and we expect our billet families to enforce these team rules. All billet house rules will need to be communicated to the player when he arrives. Among some of the benefits of becoming a billet:

• Each billet family is paid a monthly stipend to house a player in their home.
• Generally, billets, players and the player's family develop very special bonds and remain close long after the player has left the Junior Whalers organization. We try to make it possible to make sure that this experience is a rewarding one for both the player and the billets.
• Free game tickets are another wonderful benefit of billeting.