Amateur Sports
In North America, billet families offer room and board to junior ice hockey players (or Under-20 athletes from other sports, such as soccer). who leave home to join elite teams in other towns. Coaches are often involved with matching a player to a billet family. The objective of a billet family is to provide a "home away from home" for young players during the season. However, exaggerated fears over child safety in amateur sports in Canada drastically curtailed billeting practice. Many places do not billet, while other clubs through their provincial sports' bodies have instituted mandatory criminal record checks for all involved in amateur sports, including coaches, volunteers and anyone over eighteen years of age from the host family.
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Famous quotes containing the words amateur and/or sports:
“I have been reporting club meetings for four years and I am tired of hearing reviews of the books I was brought up on. I am tired of amateur performances at occasions announced to be for purposes either of enjoyment or improvement. I am tired of suffering under the pretense of acquiring culture. I am tired of hearing the word “culture” used so wantonly. I am tired of essays that let no guilty author escape quotation.”
—Josephine Woodward, U.S. author. As quoted in Everyone Was Brave, ch. 3, by William L. O’Neill (1969)
“Guys do not have a genetic blueprint that allows them to understand or love sports.”
—Lesley Visser, U.S. sports reporter and announcer. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 82 (June 17, 1991)