LEWISTON – Peggy Auger cried. She admits it readily, because she can’t hide it. She has cried almost every day since defenseman Jonathan Paiement returned home from Rouyn-Noranda.

Last week, at Sunday’s final home game, Maineiacs’ General Manager Normand Gosselin turned to Auger and said, “I told you not to get too attached to the players.”

He was lighthearted about it, kidding in tone.

On Thursday, Auger was again on the verge of tears, talking about the imminent departure of her billet son, Paiement.

“Whoever it was that told us not to get attached, it must have been a man,” said Auger, managing a small laugh. “He has become part of our family. He was taken into our home and we treated him like one of our own – he was spoiled rotten.”

Auger’s own two kids are grown up and have moved out of the area, giving her the extra room to host a player this season.

“My son has even been on my case,” Auger said. “He used to have the room in the basement and it was never heated. When Jonathan came, we started heating the basement.”

As billet families, the job was as simple as it was complex – take a hockey player into your home for the length of the season and then let him pack up and leave when the season ends. For some, though, the bond formed over the course of that season will last a lifetime.

“I was at the Hall of Fame banquet on Wednesday night,” Maineiacs General Manager Normand Gosselin said. “Everyone up there talking about playing the ‘Q,’ they all mentioned their billet families, still to this day. Many of them stay in contact for the rest of their lives. That is how important they are to some of these players.”

Sometimes, the players can be just as important to the families.

“Jonathan’s family has basically adopted us as part of theirs,” Auger said. “They take you in and you become as much a part of their family.”

On Friday night, as Paiement packed his things for the final trip home to Montreal, the tears began to flow again.

“There was a lot of crying all around,” Auger said. “We know he’s going home to his parents, and we know he’ll be back again next season, but it’s still hard.”

Gosselin offered some sage advice to Auger and to the rest of the billet families Thursday, telling them not to jump back into the billet pool immediately after their first player leaves.

“After the first one, especially, you might want to just take a year off,” Gosselin said. “Sometimes emotionally it is the best thing to do.”

As for finding more families for next season, should some heed Gosselin’s advice, billet coordinator Ron Guerin says he should have no problem finding more suitable families.

“I don’t see any reason why any of the current families that have already met the criteria would all of a sudden not meet them for next year,” Guerin said, “but in the last half year or so, the interest in the program has exploded. Next year, we will contact each of the current families about their interest, and then the goal is to have just one player per billet across the board.”

This year, three families provided board for two players.

As for Auger, if Paiement is back in town as a 19-year-old defenseman, you can bet she will throw her name back into the pool and request to have him back in her home.

“Telling him he couldn’t come back here would be like telling my own son not to come home,” Auger said. “He brought a lot of joy to this house, and he brought hockey back, too. We’re all looking forward to training camp again in August.”

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