Lose a Bet and Your Nails May Be Painted

Think of how hard it would be to be away from home for over half a year. For some junior hockey players, this is what they experience when they are in season.  Steel players who are not from the Chicagoland area, stay with billet families. These families take them in for the entire season and welcome them as part of their family.

We were able to sit down with Tim Davison and ask him about his host family as well as get some answers to why his nails were painted when he showed up to the rink yesterday.

Tim is living with the Faulkner family, where there are three little kids, Blake, Avery, and Drew. Blake and Drew both play hockey, and Avery is active in gymnastics. Before meeting the family, Davison thought that it might be a little weird to be living with another family, however, his thoughts quickly changed when he arrived. "Right when I first got there I met Jamie, the mom, who made me feel right at home,” Davison said.

After leaving his life in DePere, Wisc., Davison's typical day has changed quite a bit.

"I usually don’t see them in the morning,” he said. “I get home around 4 p.m. and they are usually out and about with hockey and gymnastics. About 5 or 5:30 p.m. they come home, and Jaccob and I usually play hockey with the boys. I sometimes help the kids with their homework or sometimes we will shoot pucks with the older kid Blake. Then we have dinner with the family and then the kids go to bed."

Now as many of you know, especially if you have children or grew up with siblings, siblings tend to pick on each other and also make bets. When the boys live with billet families, they consider the kids to be like their siblings as well.

Well, when Davison came into the Steel office Wednesday afternoon and showed off his beautiful painted finger nails and toe nails, the question on everyone's mind was what happened? We came to find out he lost a bet to his billet sister, Avery.

"We made a bet on who could hold a hand stand the longest,” he said. “I was able to do it for about five seconds and she did hers for a solid minute. If I won, I didn’t have to help her memorize her bible verse for the day. As you can guess, Avery won, and I got my nails painted."

Tim's finger nails were rainbow colors, and his toes were silver. Unfortunately, when we went to take a picture this morning, he had already removed the polish. However, below is an image of what they did look like.

Even though Davison lost his bet, he says that the best thing about living with the Faulkner family is that they make him feel at home.

Since we are less than a month into the 2012-13 season, we're sure that we will see or hear more exciting stories from our billet families and players. Stay tuned to see what other bets are made during the season!

Have a pucktastic day everyone!