The short answer. Billeting means a player lives with a host family near his team. A residential academy means he lives with teammates in a supervised residence with coaches on site. Billeting can feel more like home; an academy puts training, recovery, meals, school support and supervision in one place, run by the same staff every day.
What is billeting in hockey?
Billeting is when a player moves away from home and lives with a host family, usually a local volunteer family, while he plays for a team in that town. It is common in junior hockey.
What are the advantages of a residential academy?
Everything is in one building and run by one staff: coaches who live on site, a chef, a recovery room and cold plunge, a turf training room, study rooms and team transportation. Parents deal with one organization instead of a host family, a team and a school separately.
Which option is better supervised?
It depends on the host family and the program. At Revo, resident coaches live in the building, a duty coach is reachable 24 hours a day, the building is monitored by cameras, and the REACH app notifies parents in real time when a player signs out and when he returns.
How do training and recovery compare?
With billeting, training happens at the team rink and recovery is usually up to the player. At an academy, training, recovery and nutrition are part of the daily schedule. Revo players get 7 to 9 hours on the ice each week plus off ice training, video and daily access to Normatec boots, red light therapy and a cold plunge.
What should we ask any program before deciding?
Who lives with the players, what the curfew and phone rules are, how school is handled, who drives players, what happens when a player is sick or homesick, and how many alumni have gone on to college hockey. A good program will answer every one of these plainly.
Keep reading
What Is a Residential Hockey Academy? · How Players Get to College Hockey · A Day in the Life at Revo Ice Academy
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