Being a teenager can be a rough gig.

When that teenager is also a semi-professional hockey player with the Seattle Thunderbirds – facing 72 games on the ice each year while trying to maintain grades in high school and a normal social life – it can be downright brutal.

Add in the fact that the teenager also is nearly 1,500 miles from home, in a different country – and separated from family and friends – and it’s easy to see why any shot at normalcy is crucial.

Welcome to Calvin Pickard’s life.

Raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba and now a junior at Kent-Meridian High, Pickard is the 16-year-old goalie for the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League.

From September to March, Pickard lives in Kent with the Baskin family, as part of the Thunderbirds’ billet program. The program matches up Kent-area families with underage members of the team to provide a home environment for the players and balance the demands and hectic schedule of being a semi-pro athlete.

A few months ago, Kathy Baskin was perusing the newspaper when the billet ad caught her attention.

Already a hockey fan, courtesy of her late-husband Darrel’s lifelong love of the sport, Baskin also was no stranger to raising young men.

With three sons, including Kyle, 20, who still lives with her, Baskin realized that she had something to offer not only the Thunderbirds, but the billet player as well.

So Baskin contacted a friend with the Thunderbird organization and asked for their opinion of the program.

“I asked him, ‘If you lived in Kent, would you do it?’” she said. “And he said he would and that the kids were great. So the next thing I knew (Thunderbirds’ assistant coach) Turner (Stevenson) is calling, then he’s at our house and five days later we have Calvin.”

After checking out the host family’s environs and informing them of expectations, which include treating the athlete as a member of the family and even assigning chores, Turner quickly arranged for an introduction.

“He (Pickard) came down here for training camp,” she said. “I then met his dad. When I went over to Tri-Cities for a tournament, I learned a little more about Calvin. I really just wanted to find out what his dad wanted for his son while he was down here.”

“I think the expectation is that we’re providing a home for them, a home away from home.”

Routine is critical for Pickard, who has two-hour practices six days a week.

“It’s just important to maintain the same routine every day – take care of school and go to the rink and practice,” he said. “Then I go to the gym and come home and relax and then do the same thing the next day.”

Unlike most of the other Thunderbird billet athletes, Pickard was not unfamiliar to the program. His brother, Chet Pickard, 19, also is a goalie in the WHL, with the Tri-City Americans, where he was part of the billet program.

Once the younger Pickard was offered the chance to play with the Thunderbirds, he went to Chet for advice.“My brother had to do it the last two years, so he gave me the heads up as to what to expect,” he said.

That wasn’t, however, enough to ease the pain of moving away from family and friends.

“It was really tough moving away from home, living with another family,” he said.

Pickard said he gets to see his family during the three-month offseason, as well as for a few days during the holiday break. Other than that it’s just phone calls home every night or the occasional opportunities when his parents can attend a game.

“We did a road trip back east and they went to all of my games during that,” Pickard said.

Although the cultural differences are slight between Canada and America, “other than there’s no Tim Horton’s here,” Pickard said, it’s still vital to feel as though you are part of a unit.

That’s where Kathy and Kyle come in.

Though Kyle was, admittedly, apprehensive.

“I didn’t like it at first and didn’t want anything to do with it,” he said. “I didn’t want some punk who was going to come in and boss my mom around.”

Once Kyle found out the details of the program and actually met Pickard, he warmed up to him.

“Once Turner came and told us what would happen, and that he would be like another kid and not somebody that would come in and run the house, that left me more open to it,” he said. “And when I first met him, we watched Family Guy about an hour after. And we got along great.”

Kathy said that the transition, although still early, has gone well.

“One of the things I really like about Calvin is that he’s not the kind of kid that goes into his room and hides out,” she said. “He sits down here with us and watches TV with us and hangs out with us.”

And although Kathy knows she is supposed to treat Pickard like just one of the family, she can’t help but pamper him sometimes, especially at meals.

“You can’t help treating him like a guest when he first got out here,” she said. “And I think we’re still in the getting-to-know-each-other process. But I think he fits in really well with the rest of the family. I told him shortly after he got here that he likes to eat and I like to cook, so we have a lot in common there.”

Pickard agrees.

“She makes a mean Caesar salad,” he said. “And she made a great stew yesterday. And I get lots of good pasta. I have really good meals.”

To help defray the costs of food, billet families receive $200 a month, and also a pair of season tickets to the Thunderbirds.

But for Kathy, it’s about more than just being able to catch a few free hockey games.

“Our motivation is that we have a connection to hockey because of my husband,” Baskin said. “When I read that article in the paper, it just seemed to be the right thing to do. We’ve never really been the type of family that has opened our house to strangers. … Hockey was the last thing my husband was really interested in besides his family.”

According to Baskin her husband had just started playing with the amateur Greater Seattle Hockey League before he was diagnosed with cancer. And the pair had also got the opportunity to catch a Stanley Cup game in Ottawa in 2007.

“It just seemed like the right thing to do to honor his memory,” she said.

And it’s also a chance to aid one more young man in his journey to adulthood.

“As long as I live in my home in Kent, Calvin has a place to stay whenever he comes back to the Thunderbirds,” she added.

Becoming a billet family

The Seattle Thunderbirds provide billets throughout the South Puget Sound – including Kent, Auburn and Maple Valley – for all 24 members of the team roster.

For more information on the Thunderbirds’ billet program, visit the team’s Web site at www.seattlethunderbirds.com/team/billet or e-mail the team at stbirds@seattlethunderbirds.com. Information also can be obtained by calling 253-239-7825.