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Autistic defender
Walker Aurand, like so many young men (1) started playing hockey when they were (2) high, spent chilly Saturday mornings being dragged to practice (3) 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.
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But hockey would do something else for Aurand as well: help him tackle autism. Many of Aurand’s Davenport University teammates had (4) idea he had 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 (5) autism wasn’t obvious is a testament not only to intervention, but also to the positive (6) hockey has had on Aurand.
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"Autism and the severity of autism, (7) varies,” Aurand tells GOOD. “I have a milder form of autism now ... and that’s due to the fact that when I was younger I got put through (8) hours of therapy.” Both of Aurand’s parents were proactive in making sure he got the help he needed, and it didn’t (9) that his mother is a speech pathologist. “That was sort of an advantage really that my mother knew what kind of therapies to get me,” he says. Including ice time.
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“When I’m on the ice, any learning differences or autistic feelings that I have all just go right out the window,” the 20-year-old defenseman says. “The rink is a place where I’m able to kind of feel (10). I don’t think (11) the struggles that I’ve had or any of the challenges that I’ve faced. Hockey is where I feel like I can be myself and (12) have to worry about anything.”
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And it’s been that way for (13) long as he can remember, which impressively enough, goes all the way back to when the Michigan native was just two years old and his parents took him to a rink (14) first time. “My dad came on the ice with me. We originally (15) he would skate with me,” Aurand says. “After about five minutes, I looked at him and said, ‘I’ll do it by myself, Dad.’ The kid has been on the ice ever since.
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After playing for his high school team and spending a year with the Minnesota Junior Hockey League’s Dells Ducks, Aurand (16) a spot with the American Collegiate Hockey Association Division 1 Davenport hockey team in Grand Rapids, Michigan, just 15 minutes from home, allowing his parents to (17) his home games. Here Aurand simply thinks of (18) as a college sophomore and hockey player, not necessarily a college sophomore and hockey player with autism.
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Aurand’s isn’t the only example of participation in athletics being beneficial for autistic (19). There are the heartwarming highlight clips of youngsters with more severe cases who have done very (20) in high school basketball, youth baseball, or bowling, for instance, but there are also instances where the integration - socially and athletically - is even more seamless. Brick, N.J., high school kicker Anthony Starego, former Michigan State basketball player turned anti-bullying advocate Anthony Ianni, and former Olympic swimming hopeful Devin Ross come to mind. Aurand’s feeling of inclusion as a college (21) perhaps is more in the vein of those three examples.
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That does not mean Aurand doesn’t still face difficulties, and certain (22) others might take for granted he’s had to learn through experience. Understanding sarcasm, for example, was something he once had trouble (23). “I used to be awful at it,” he laughs. “If someone would say something to me and had a dry sense of humor and said it with a straight face, I’d have no idea if they were joking or not.” The interactions, particularly with teammates, allowed Aurand to become more familiar with the humor so that now he more easily (24) jokes and sarcasm.
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"But if there’s ever a time where I can’t figure it out,” he says, “my teammates are great enough guys where I can ask them, ‘Hey, he was joking right?’” Dealing well with (25) is something else he is happy 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’s intensity too personally. “He was one of the best coaches (26) that I’ve ever had in my entire life, but he got intense sometimes and that was hard,” Aurand says. “I had to learn that he wasn’t yelling (27) 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.”
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These days, Aurand wants feedback. He’d rather receive constructive criticism than (28) for having done a good job. “I’m kind of a perfectionist and I always want to do better,” he says.
Even in youth hockey he wanted to do better, but that’s not always easy for a child to process, especially when autism is (29). Aurand would cry and throw fits when the other team won or even scored a goal. And while he’s grown out of that, he still can struggle with the disappointment of a loss, such as during last season’s national semifinals.
The disappointment was the greatest Aurand ever remembered experiencing - especially 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. “I wanted it more for them (30) I wanted it for myself,” he says. “That took a little bit of time to get over, for sure. But I know it’s hockey and not everything goes your way sometimes."
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