Walker Aurand, like so many young men who started playing hockey when they were knee high, spent frigid Saturday mornings being schlepped to practice by bleary-eyed parents. Eventually he would live out his dream playing for a college team, his childhood, and teen years having been shaped by the game.<\/p>\n
But hockey would do something else for Aurand as well: help\u00a0him tackle autism. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Many of Aurand\u2019s\u00a0Davenport University teammates had no idea he\u00a0had autism, a developmental disorder that can impair communication and social interaction, until he penned a first-person piece that ran on local hockey blog MiHockey over the summer. That his autism wasn\u2019t obvious is a testament not only to intervention, but also to the positive impact hockey has had on Aurand.<\/p>\n
\u201cAutism and the severity of autism, it varies,\u201d Aurand tells GOOD. \u201cI have a milder form of autism now … \u00a0and that\u2019s due to the fact that when I was younger I got put through umpteen hours of therapy.\u201d Both of Aurand\u2019s parents were proactive in ensuring he got the help he needed, and it didn\u2019t hurt that his mother is\u00a0a speech pathologist. \u201cThat was sort of an advantage really that my mother knew what kind of therapies to get me,\u201d\u00a0he says.<\/p>\n
Including ice time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I\u2019m on the ice, any learning differences or autistic feelings that I have all just go right out the window,\u201d the 20-year-old defenseman says. \u201cThe rink is a place where I\u2019m able to kind of feel whole. I don\u2019t think about the struggles that I\u2019ve had or any of the challenges that I\u2019ve faced. Hockey is where I feel like I can be myself and not have to worry about anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s been that way for as long as he can remember, which\u00a0impressively enough, goes all the way back to when the Michigan native was just two\u00a0years\u00a0old and his parents took him to a rink for the first time. \u201cMy dad came on the ice with me. We originally thought he would skate with me,\u201d Aurand says. \u201cAfter about five minutes, I looked at him and said, \u2018I\u2019ll do it by myself, Dad.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The kid has\u00a0been on the ice ever since. \u00a0<\/p>\n
When I\u2019m on the ice, any learning differences or autistic feelings that I have all just go right out the window.<\/p>\n
After playing for his high school team and spending a year with the Minnesota Junior Hockey League\u2019s Dells Ducks, Aurand earned a spot with the American Collegiate Hockey Association\u00a0Division 1 Davenport hockey team\u00a0in Grand Rapids, Michigan, just 15 minutes from home, allowing his parents to attend his home games.\u00a0Here Aurand simply thinks of himself as a college sophomore and hockey player, not necessarily a college sophomore and hockey player with autism<\/em>.<\/p>\n Aurand\u2019s isn\u2019t the only example of participation in athletics being beneficial for autistic kids. There are the heartwarming highlight clips of kids with more severe cases authoring standout performances in high school basketball, youth baseball, or bowling, for instance, but there also are instances where the integration\u2014socially and athletically\u2014is even more seamless. Brick, N.J., high school kicker Anthony Starego,\u00a0former Michigan State basketball player turned anti-bullying advocate Anthony Ianni, and former Olympic swimming hopeful Devin Ross\u00a0come to mind. Aurand\u2019s feeling of inclusion\u00a0as a college athlete perhaps is more in the vein of those three\u00a0examples.<\/p>\n That does not\u00a0mean Aurand doesn\u2019t still face unique obstacles, and certain instincts others might take for granted he\u2019s had to hone through experience. Picking up on sarcasm, for example, was something he once had trouble with.<\/p>\n \u201cI used to be awful at it,\u201d he laughs. \u201cIf someone would say something to me and had a dry sense of humor and said it with a straight face, I\u2019d have no idea if they were joking or not.\u201d The interactions, particularly with teammates, allowed Aurand to\u00a0become more familiar with\u00a0the humor\u00a0so that\u00a0now he\u00a0more easily recognizes jokes and sarcasm.<\/p>\n \u201cBut if there\u2019s ever a time where I can\u2019t figure it out,\u201d he says, \u201cmy teammates are great enough guys where I can ask them, \u2018Hey, he was joking right?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Dealing well with criticism is something else he is\u00a0happy to have conquered. The year he spent playing with the Dells Ducks, which happened to be the first time he lived away from home, Aurand struggled not to take his coach\u2019s intensity too personally.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was one of the best coaches by far that I\u2019ve ever had in my entire life, but he got intense sometimes and that was hard,\u201d\u00a0Aurand says. \u201cI had to learn that … he wasn\u2019t yelling at you because he thinks less of you as a person, he was doing it because he wants you to become a better hockey player and he realizes how much potential you have.\u201d<\/p>\n There are high moments and low moments and how you respond to those moments I think defines who you are.<\/p>\n These days, Aurand wants feedback. He\u2019d rather receive constructive criticism than praise for having done a good job. \u201cI\u2019m kind of a perfectionist and I always want to do better,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Even in youth hockey he wanted to do better, but that\u2019s not always easy for a child to process,\u00a0especially when autism is involved. Aurand would cry and throw fits when the other team won or even scored a goal. And while he\u2019s grown out of that, he still can struggle with the disappointment of a loss, such as during last season\u2019s national semifinals. After\u00a0beating Robert Morris and the University of Central Oklahoma, Aurand\u2019s\u00a0Davenport Panthers suffered a 2-1 loss to eventual champion Lindenwood University in their next (and what would be final) game of the season, knocking them out of the tournament.<\/p>\n The disappointment was the greatest Aurand ever remembered experiencing\u2014especially due to his desire for the graduating seniors who had made his first year on the team an amazing experience to end their college careers with that trophy. \u201cI wanted it more for them than I wanted it for myself,\u201d\u00a0he says. \u201cThat took a little bit of time to get over, for sure. But I know it\u2019s hockey and not everything goes your way sometimes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cLife goes on\u2014you just try to move on and get better from that.\u201d<\/p>\n A year ago, Aurand was nervous about being accepted as an incoming freshman on an established team,\u00a0not to mention taking on a full course load and adjusting to the social intricacies of college life. \u00a0But he now says things couldn\u2019t be going better, thanks in large part to his teammates. \u201cThese past two years I\u2019ve been a part of some of the most accepting groups of guys that I\u2019ve ever played with in my entire life,\u201d\u00a0he says.<\/p>\n For sure, Walker Aurand is about as thoughtful a 20-year-old as they come, able to recognize what he\u2019s achieved thus far, put his experience to good use, and focus on his goals. While he believes his most memorable hockey career moment has yet to come (a national championship for Davenport, of course), for now, Aurand is enjoying\u2014and learning from\u2014the game.<\/p>\n \u201cSports in general are a lot like life. There are high moments and low moments and how you respond to those moments I think defines who you are,\u201d he says. \u201cHockey has in a sense helped show me what it is I\u2019m really made of.<\/p>\n \u201cI can take the moments on the ice and apply it to real life. If I can get through this on the ice, I can get through anything else in life. Hockey has been therapy on its own for me.\u201d Main "hero" image courtesy Alexis Hoffman\/AlexisJoyPhotography<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Walker Aurand, like so many young men who started playing hockey when they were knee high, spent frigid Saturday mornings being schlepped to practice by bleary-eyed parents. Eventually he would live out his dream playing for a college team, his childhood, and teen years having been shaped by the game. But hockey would do something…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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