Carol Stream girl with autism meets her hockey idols: the refs

Nicole Augustyniak hurries past the locker room, eager to meet her heroes.

No, the Carol Stream 11-year-old doesn't want autographs from the Chicago Wolves players who pulled off a win in overtime. She's not looking around for the coaches. A Zamboni? Nicole has seen plenty of those on TV, and moves on.

So what's she fan-girling about? The guys in stripes, of course.

“Today,” Nicole declares, “I get to unveil my inner official.”

Nobody roots for the refs. So when Nicole sheepishly opens the door to the officials room at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, one of her idols has to ask: “Did you yell at us?”

Nicole would never.

“I was making all the calls you did,” she said.

Nicole's interest in hockey and officiating began about two years ago when she watched a Blackhawks game.

“She felt sorry for the refs during the game because people were booing them,” her mom, Linda Augustyniak, said. “She's like, ‘They're just doing their jobs.'”

It's more than a simple case of sympathy. Nicole, who has autism and has long defied expectations — by doctors, by psychologists — had not yet found her passion until she started learning all she could about the rules of hockey, her mom said. “It's been a godsend. It really has.”

As a baby, Nicole was withdrawn. At about 9 months old, she began intensive therapies.

“Nobody ever expected her to have language, let alone be so social,” Linda Augustyniak said.

But her mom would see a “frustrated little girl” aching to communicate. At 3, Nicole did just that and started to speak.

“She takes so much more out of every scene in her life and her experiences than you and I do,” Linda Augustyniak said.

Now in mainstream classes with her peers at Benjamin Middle School, the curious sixth-grader wears a ref's jersey every Friday. And she catches up on game highlights before school.

“It just took one game, and she just — it's hard to describe,” her mom said. “She researches everything she can on her iPad.”

Before mom and daughter planned to go to the Wolves game in Rosemont, Linda Augustyniak reached out to Lindsey Willhite, the team's director of public relations, and asked for a meeting with just one of the referees. All Nicole wanted was to “maybe shake his hand and have a few-minute conversation with him.”

“Something like that would be the equivalent of going to Disney World for a child like Nicole,” her mom wrote.

Nicole got more than a brief meeting. First, the American Hockey League sent a referee's jersey signed by her favorite official, David Banfield.

Nicole wore that jersey to the game, where she politely informed a clueless reporter that refs, not linesmen, wear orange armbands. She didn't pay much attention to the players, but tried to imagine what it would be like to officiate.

“I wonder what those refs are talking about?” she asked.

She finally got the chance to pick their brains in the postgame officials room, where Chris Schlenker, William Hancock, Ryan Murphy and Ryan Daisy thanked her for “being part of our team” and presented her with another jersey and the game puck.

In Nicole, Schlenker recognized what he sees in his own 7-year-old son, who also has autism.

“It's those smiles on their faces. They just have such a different look on life, and it's a humbling experience to see how excited they are,” Schlenker said. “It's a good grounding for the rest of us who just kind of take this stuff for granted.”

The four all wanted to take a picture with Nicole and led her out on to the ice — a moment mom knew “would resonate” with her daughter.

But all the excitement left mom with a little problem:

“What am I going to do for Christmas now?” she said.