The Littlejohn family from Newmarket — like a handful of other Ontario hockey families — are making their way to Flint, Mich., this weekend armed with questions.

There will be questions about billets, questions about the city’s crisis about lead in the water supply, questions about the antics of the owner of the OHL’s Flint Firebirds.

“When we first got drafted by Flint, we had mixed emotions at first,” said Jim Littlejohn, whose son Ryan was a fifth-round pick in the OHL priority selection draft. “When we meet, we’ll have more discussions with seeing how everything is done.

“I probably will have a better feel of everything else when we go there this weekend.”

It will be up to newly installed general manager George Burnett to answer those questions.

The contamination of Flint’s water supply by lead from corroding pipes might already have led to deaths, could well lead to health dangers down the road for those with elevated lead levels in their blood, and has certainly led to criminal and civil charges locally.

“I don’t believe those are issues any longer,” said Burnett. “I don’t believe there’s any need for concern from anyone.”

For one thing, the players billet and go to school in Grand Blanc, to the southeast of Flint. Grand Blanc has its own — lead-free — water supply. And the rink, on the outskirts of Flint, also has safe water while bottled water is what’s available on the bench for both teams.

“The league has done extensive testing to put some comfort with the players and the players,” said Burnett. “But all the families and players will get all the information they need before they make a decision on the Flint franchise.”

Burnett is as credible a candidate as there was on the OHL landscape when the league took over Flint’s hockey operations control from owner Rolf Nilson, who twice fired his coaching staff over the playing time of his son, Hakon Nilson, last season.

The first time, Firebirds players — including the son — walked out in protest, getting the coaches reinstalled. The second time, the firings held, but the OHL suspended the owner from having anything with hockey decisions and fined him $250,000.

Captain Alex Peters remembers last season as a tumultuous one, but not without its virtues.

“The water crisis in Flint, our team wasn’t affected,” said Peters, a draft pick of the Dallas Stars. “The arena and the houses we lived had good drinking water. You could really see a community helping each other.

“At our rink, there was water to be given out. Other OHL teams were raising money for the city. That was pretty cool to see how the league could help a city out that was in need. It humbles you to make you realize what you have.

“From the on-ice part, our team just kind of stuck together as a group, dealt with the adversity. The group we had became tight-knit because of everything we went through. We tried to take everything as a positive.”

Burnett is a hockey lifer, a one-time coach of the Edmonton Oilers, who has been coaching in some league somewhere since 1989, most recently with the Hamilton Bulldogs. He’s hired two young coaches in Ryan Oulahen and assistant Eric Wellwood to lead the young team out of the quagmire.

Burnett’s might be the toughest job in hockey.

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“I don’t care where you are with the 60 teams in the CHL, every one of them is a challenge in lots of different ways,” said Burnett. “What can get lost in some of the things that happened last year is that there were a lot of positive things: The fan-base, the energy in the building.”

The Littlejohns, who’ve already had some of their fears assuaged, figure their biggest problem will be letting their oldest son, though just a teenager, move to a different city in a different country.

“It’s what he wants to do,” said the father. “We’ll have some mixed feelings if things aren’t going well because we’re not that close. I think we’ll be OK with it.”