WHL NOTEBOOK: Billets create indelible impression on Roberts family

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This article was published 15/12/2021 (1394 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Western Hockey League players spend just a fraction of their time on the ice, the place fans usually see them.

Most move away from home as a young teenager, leaving behind everything familiar for a hockey dream, and their parents have to rely on strangers to take care of them.

But sometimes they aren’t strangers for long.

Landon Roberts, who grew up on a farm between Souris and Brandon, was drafted by the Tri-City Americans in 2017 and joined the club full time for the 2019-20 season.

Tri-City plays in Kennewick, Wash., a city of 87,000 located straight south of Kelowna near the Oregon border, a long 1,800-kilometre drive from the farm.

When Landon’s mother Cheryl and her sister drove him out to Washington for the 2019-20 season, he initially stayed in a hotel because they didn’t have a spot for him. He briefly settled with a family that serves as temporary billets, and then ended up with Tracy and Mike Wilson, in about as perfect a match as either side could have hoped for. 

The Wilsons are in their fourth year of billeting WHLers and have had four players, including Samuel Stewart of Winnipeg (the older brother of Wheat Kings prospect Thomas), Regina Pats defenceman Tom Cadieux and current American Jake Sloan.

Cheryl Roberts and her husband Vance found out Landon would be staying with the Wilsons when Tracy texted to introduce herself. It happened so quickly that Landon didn’t have a chance to tell them yet.

“It was such a load off,” Cheryl Roberts said. “He’s miles away and Tracy filled in the blanks. They were literally his second family. She filled in gaps if there were questions, it was fantastic. They made it so much easier to have him so far away.” 

The Wilsons had previously billeted baseball players, so they had a pretty good sense of what it entailed. A big part of that is communication.

“The boys are super busy, they have a lot going on, so we try to reach out,” Wilson said. “We kind of feel like we billet the parents too. They don’t know what’s going on day to day so there is a lot of communication. We’ve been very close with all of the parents.

“Down in the U.S. Division, all the boys are from Canada, so there are very few families who ever get to come and watch. We want them to know they’ve got their family, their biggest cheering section.”

The Roberts had plans to head down to Kennewick to visit their son and the Wilsons, but the pandemic interceded just before they were scheduled to leave. The couples did meet in Alberta during a road trip in February 2020. 

“Landon came to us when he was barely 17 years old and this is our third season with him,” Wilson said. “We kind of watched him grow up. He’s such a sweet kid. My husband and I and our family — we have three kids of our own who are a little older than Landon — he’s just been such a great part of our family. We’re happy to support him.”

For Landon, whose siblings include 24-year-old brother Brendan, 22-year-old sister Kendra, who plays rugby at UBC, and 17-year-old brother Nolan, who is a defenceman with the under-18 AAA Wheat Kings, one of the neatest parts is how close his mother and Wilson have become.

“They’re better friends than anyone else I can think of in the world,” Landon said. “They text way more than anyone I’ve ever heard of. Anything I hear from Tracy, she’s already heard about it two hours before. They have so many plans I can’t even keep up with it.”

One of those plans played out last week, but it only came after a momentous change for everyone involved.

On Oct. 31, the Americans traded Landon to the Brandon Wheat Kings for a seventh-round pick in 2024. It meant he was coming home, but that didn’t make it much easier for anyone.

That morning, the Wilsons were getting ready to have their family pictures taken, with pumpkin carving on the agenda in the afternoon.

They had rescheduled the pictures after it rained on the first date, so Tracy texted Landon that morning reminding him he had to be ready in 30 minutes.

“He goes ‘Ya, I need to come down and talk to you and Mike,’” Wilson said. “I was like ‘Oh no, there’s only one thing that could be.’ We waited and waited and he came down and the minute I saw it on his face I knew what happened. 

“It took a little while. There were big hugs and lots of tears and then he told me what had happened. It was emotional, obviously with him getting to come back and play here in Brandon. He had never been able to play a home game here because of the COVID they never did do their swing out here.”

It wasn’t just her family that was affected. There was another one in the dressing room.

“The boys are family so you have your team family,” Wilson said. “The boys are all very close and look out for one another. Landon has been a great mentor for our other billet because he’s two years younger and the boys look up to their older billets.”

Cheryl was in Calgary watching Kendra play in the Canada West final when she received a text from Landon telling her about the deal.

“I’m like ‘OK buddy, you’ve crossed the line. This isn’t funny.’ They have that sense of humour,” Cheryl remembered. “I texted Tracy and I said ‘Is it true?’ and she sent back one emoji and I’m like ‘Oh my gosh. Wow.’ It just spiralled from there.”

At the Wilson home, the family pictures were taken and the carving went ahead as planned. Landon carved a broken heart into his pumpkin.

“Although there are tears, it’s not sad in the way of a bad sad,” Wilson said. “It’s tears of happiness in a way because this is the next step and the rest of your life and this is going to be a good thing, but you have to say goodbye. He did a farewell tour that day to all of the other families and friends and we went and had a family dinner at our favourite family restaurant that we usually do at the end of the season.”

The deal certainly had an impact on the Americans dressing room because Roberts was a popular, well-liked teammate.

“Two other players’ moms messaged me on Facebook and said ‘We just heard the news, our sons called home crying because Landon was traded,’” Cheryl said. “That tells you how tight these boys are. I’m not going to lie, Landon is my kid so he has those points that annoy you but he’s so damn lovable. It’s his personality. I don’t think there’s a person out there that he doesn’t get along with.

“He’s fierce and a tough competitor but as soon as that whistle blows, he’s smiling and will hug whoever.”

That was a big part of what it made so tough for the Wilsons.

“You just have to live in the moment,” Wilson said. “We know at any given time something can happen. As hard as that is, it’s always in the back of your mind a little bit. You’re trying to prepare, you think you’re prepared, I thought I was prepared because I assumed at some point someone was trading. You just never get the sense in the four or five years and someone in your house that long, you’re not prepared. There’s no way to prepare for that.

“We don’t want him to be sad about having to leave because it’s for him, not about anybody else, but what’s best for the hockey player and for Landon.”

Roberts joined the Wheat Kings a couple of days later and has since proven to be an indispensable source of energy and physicality, with two goals, two assists and 21 penalty minutes in 16 games in Brandon.

It didn’t take long for the Stewarts to decide they were coming north to visit. The trip had been planned for November, but Mike Wilson is a busy police detective. Between a court case and American Thanksgiving, the trip was pushed back. 

Tracy ultimately decided to fly to Brandon without Mike and spent last week with the Roberts family.

“Now you’re spoiling me,” Wilson said with a laugh.

“Absolutely!” Cheryl replied. “She’s just as bad as I am at taking compliments and letting me take care of her. We’re both educators and both moms and we’re used to doing everything for everyone else. It’s hard to be on the receiving end.”

There is one more important detail to her trip. Nobody told Landon that Wilson was coming.

The day she flew to Brandon, she sat in the back of the dining room before Landon arrived. When he came home, Cheryl turned on her phone and videoed him as he greeted extended family members who were also there. When he walked into the dining room and saw Wilson, all he could muster was “Holy (expletive)” and rushed over to give her a long hug.

Landon said it’s important to him to maintain that relationship in the future.

“It’s huge,” Landon said. “They were everything to me in Tri-City. When I found out I was getting traded, I knew that wouldn’t stop. I knew they were forever a part of my family and part of my life. It was definitely a surprise. You could hear my colourful choice of words. It’s huge and I love it.”

Wilson said it was important to her to re-establish that bond and wash away her most recent recollections of Landon.

“For me, the last memory we had was very emotional,” Wilson said. “The last thing I remember is seeing all of that and it was like a closure piece to see them in their home rink where they’re happy, what they’re doing with the people who they love.

“You just don’t get to prepare yourself. It takes a while to process all of that, and that’s as an adult. We’re there to help the boys but it’s really hard.”

Cadieux was also in on the reunion on Saturday because the Pats were in town.

The 19-year-old defenceman was in his rookie WHL season in 2018-19 — the year before Roberts arrived — when his original billets moved to Las Vegas, and he ended up with the Wilsons.

“When I first walked in, they welcomed me into their home with open arms and it’s been nothing but great since,” Cadieux said. 

Cadieux was moved to a different home for the 2019-20 season to drive another player to school, but the Saskatoon product was planning to return to the Wilsons for the 2020-21 season. Unfortunately, he was traded to the Pats on Oct. 20, 2020, long before the pandemic-delayed campaign began in the New Year.

“It was hard,” Cadieux said. “I was at home so it wasn’t as face to face so it was a bit easier that way but still pretty bad.”

But distance certainly didn’t dim the relationship. They remain in touch.

“I text them every so often and so do my parents,” Cadieux said. “My parents are really close with them too. For them to do something like this is really special. Relationships like that will last for a lifetime. It’s really good.”

But those bonds, as strong as they are, certainly don’t make trade days any easier. Wilson has seen it first hand with Roberts and Stewart, and doubts fans have any idea of the emotional impact on the young players.

“I don’t think people realize how hard it is for the boys,” Wilson said. “They’re kids, they’re human and their lives are split. One call and within five minutes, everything they thought they knew is gone. They all know it can happen. (The Americans) had another player (Talyn Boyko) traded the next week so it’s a very emotional time.”

Wilson, who hand cranked the pre-game alarm for the Wheat Kings on Tuesday, sat with her friend Cheryl at three home games this week while the pair also had a variety of adventures around western Manitoba.

Wilson flew home on Sunday morning, and after how she treated their son, took the everlasting gratitude of the Roberts family with her.

“There’s no way to put into words what kind of spot Mike and Tracy and their family have in our hearts,” Cheryl Roberts said. “They took care of Landon when we couldn’t. I didn’t bat an eye worrying about him once I knew he was in their house.

“You can’t put that into words.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com

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