hockey autism

NJ hockey program includes kids with autism
From the Asbury Park Press in N.J.:

Every morning, 5-year-old Owen Thigpen (pictured) races into his mom’s bedroom and asks, “Is today a hockey day?”

On Sunday mornings, when her towheaded son appears at her bedside — usually at 4:30 a.m. — she can give him the answer he wants to hear.

“Yes,” she tells him, groggily, “today is your hockey day.”

Owen is like a thousand other hockey-crazed kids here in Brick, which has a proud hockey tradition, except in one regard: He has autism.

Because of his condition, Owen has trouble walking, staying focused and interacting socially, but you’d hardly know that to see him tearing around the rink in his green hockey uniform at the Ocean Ice Palace.

“He’s going to be the first autistic kid in the NHL,” predicts his mom, Eileen Thigpen of Brick.

Owen is one of about two dozen players in a new hockey program for children with developmental delays. Ranging in age from 5 to 17, most have autism, Down syndrome or a traumatic brain injury.

The Brick Hockey Club started the program this fall when a slot opened up on its Sunday morning schedule. Former club president Alex DePalma, a coaching director with USA Hockey, had heard about similar programs around the country and thought it was worth trying in Brick, which has a large number of children with autism.

DePalma, 47, of Brick concedes he wasn’t sure how it would work. Neither did the handful of parents and children who were the first to sign up. But the program so far has surpassed everyone’s expectations.

Corporate sponsors and more than a dozen volunteers, including several youth hockey players, signed on to help. A used-equipment drive netted a truckload of uniforms, pads, helmets and skates. “We could probably dress 50 to 60 kids completely,” said Justin Ambrosio, 25, of Brick, a club coach who led the effort.

And the kids, some of whom were terrified when they stepped out on the ice that first Sunday morning in October, are skating better each week.

“The first time he was on skates they took away the support bar,” said Owen’s mom, who calls DePalma “a godsend.”

Jim Walsh of Toms River confessed that he thought there was “no way” his son Brian, 7, who has autism and severe sensory issues, would want to play hockey. He was wrong.

“The morning after that first practice, he jumped into bed with us and said, “Want to play hockey?’ ” Walsh said.

Walsh said that unlike a sport such as baseball, which didn’t work for Brian at all, hockey is fast-moving and requires constant concentration just to stay upright. That’s excellent therapy for someone like his son.

“I can’t tell you how wonderful it is,” said Brian’s mother, Kerry Walsh, a physical therapist. “He’s so much calmer and more focused and organized on Sunday after hockey, and that lasts most of the day.”

DePalma says he’s overwhelmed by the players’ enthusiasm and by how appreciative their parents are to have such an outlet.

“I’ve coached hockey for 23 years at every level,” DePalma said. “This is probably the most rewarding program I’ve ever been involved with.”

Thanks to additional sponsorship, the hockey club has extended the program through Jan. 24 and lowered the price from $160 to $100 per child.

That’s great news for Owen Thigpen, who is so pumped up about hockey his mother has to hide his stick during the week because she’s afraid he might whack something valuable with it.

She says the program has done wonders for her son’s self-esteem. Owen will tell you the same thing himself.

“I think it’s my favorite sport,” he said, before heading back out onto the ice. “I’m the best skater in the whole world!”

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Hockey hooks ‘em with its calming touch; Autistic children, adults gravitate to the game

Article Excerpt
Byline: Dave Fay, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Nothing in the dressing room seems unusual. There are a dozen or so children in various stages of undress, parents pleading with them to hurry. There is good-natured banter, but the noise level is low, if anything, almost mellow.

Finally dressed, they parade out to the ice at Gardens Ice House in Laurel. It is early on a Saturday morning, very early and very cold, but that is not even a minor inconvenience for this group. They pass a quick visual inspection, then gently step out onto the ice and glide into another world.

“It seems like they leave all their troubles here, on this side of the boards,” Washington Capitals goalie Olie Kolzig said. “Nobody knows why. They get out there on skates, and everything’s different. Well, pretty much different anyway.”

The group is made up of people – on this day, they age in range from 4 to 34 – who live with disorders that make what most people consider normal daily functions impossible for some, barely possible for others. Most of them have autism, while others have Down syndrome.

To outsiders, it looks like any team warming up. They stretch, bend, skate in circles and laugh, all while trained coaches watch. Volunteers called mentors – usually students from high schools or churches earning community service credit – help guide them. The coaches always return. The mentors normally do also, usually on their own.

What happens when the participants take the ice is unmistakable and remarkable – whatever disabilities they have evaporate, sometimes almost entirely. People who have difficulty navigating a sidewalk glide effortlessly across the ice and seem almost completely at ease.

If the transformation is magical, it is also mysterious. No one is sure why a sport like hockey would have such a calming effect, but there is no doubt it does.

“The benefit of hockey is it gives kids a medium to move in a different manner than they would every day, and it may actually help them to be more organized in their movements,” said Dr. Carole Sprouse, a neurodevelopmentalist who has a clinical appointment to George Washington University and is director of the Neurodevelopmental Diagnostic Center for Young Children in Laurel.

“We don’t understand the reason why [hockey is successful], but they look very different on the ice than they do walking around.”

The sensory levels of autistics are extraordinary, and that might have something to do with the connection between the affliction and the sport. Some participants love to get down and feel the ice with open hands, even lie on it.

“We don’t know if the helmet and other equipment make them more comfortable and shields them, but their disabilities pretty much seem to disappear when they’re playing,” said Mike Hickey, the director of the Laurel program. “I don’t have an explanation as to why it works; we’re just glad it does. It’s not so much hockey as it is teaching these kids social skills, life skills, responsibility – and hockey is the tool we use. We can reach them that way.”

But as much as the ice and the game are magnets, challenges remain. One child new to the program had no problem skating but refused mandatory safeguards, such as a helmet. Again, no one is sure why.

The Maryland program was organized by Hickey and his wife, Kim, of Crofton seven years ago, modeled after a program in St. Louis. There now is a similar one in Northern Virginia and at least 15 others in the United States and…