WHL Community Collective: Spokane Chiefs Neurodiversity Awareness Night
The Western Hockey League strives to promote and foster a welcoming community across our 22 clubs scattered throughout Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest. Every team is given the creative freedom to allow their players and staff to work with the organizations and groups that they are most passionate towards. The end goal is to create and maintain long-lasting relationships and ongoing partnerships within their community.
Through the WHL Community Collective we aim to highlight these outstanding initiatives done by each club over the course of the year.
This is what the Spokane Chiefs’ #WHLCommunity looked like this season:
Inclusivity.
A term that the Spokane Chiefs put a sizable emphasis on for the duration of the 2022-23 WHL season.
With the goal of making their home events inclusive for all groups and demographics that call Spokane, Wash. home, and alongside the Club’s ‘Hockey is for Everyone’ initiative, the Chiefs planned and hosted events that both highlighted and celebrated these communities.
Held on different home games throughout the regular season, the Chiefs and their partners created Neurodiversity Awareness, Pride, Special Olympics, and Women in Hockey themed nights. All in the hopes of making their games feel more inclusive for those attending.
Of the four events, the Chiefs’ Neurodiversity Awareness Night was a unique one for the organization as it marked the first time in franchise history where a theme night focused on people with sensory sensitivities.
Held on October 9, the debuting event invited neurodiverse fans to attend a Chiefs’ game.
Knowing that their visitors could be sensitive to some of the Chiefs’ game day elements, the Club made some slight tweaks to the arena environment to make the in-game setting more inclusive and inviting to the spectators.
For the entire event, in-game stimulants — goal horns, special effects, arena lighting, and noise makers — were all reduced out of respect to those with sensory sensitivity.
Music during stoppages-in-play and public address announcements were also limited during the game.
Along with making the environment more relaxing, one of the Chiefs’ partners, the Isaac Foundation — an organization that provides support programs to people with autism and neuro-diversities and their families — also made sensory kits available during the game.
The kits were made up of fidget devices, headphones, weighted blankets, and communication cards. After the Neurodiversity Awareness Night, the kits became available for use at the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena (SVMA) for the rest of the season.
Along with the Isaac Foundation, the Chiefs also partnered with other local groups, including Northwest Autism Centre and The ARC of Spokane, as a way of further supporting the neurodiverse community in Spokane.
The Chiefs also altered space in the SVMA to create a makeshift quiet room to offer a place of sensitivity relief for the first-time visitors.
It wasn’t just the game day experience that was modified during Neurodiversity Awareness Night, however.
During the first intermission, members of the Gonzaga Exceptional Bulldogs Hockey Program took to the ice to play in a quick scrimmage between periods. The program, which is ran from Gonzaga University, helps their players overcome learning and communications difficulties through hockey.
In March, a Chiefs leadership group comprising of Chase Bertholet, Mac Gross, and Grady Lane made a special visit to the Isaac Foundation. After all, the Chiefs were excited to visit their partners at the Isaac Foundation after the non-profit visited the Club the SVMA in November.
Three members of the Spokane Chiefs leadership team, Grady Lane, Chase Bertholet, and Mac Gross were fortunate enough to visit with our friends at the Isaac Foundation earlier this week. They are a local non-profit in Spokane, that seeks to empower those touched by autism. pic.twitter.com/FJ0VducVAl
— Spokane Chiefs (@spokanechiefs) March 22, 2023
Over the course of the visit games were played, fun was had and bonds between the players and the Isaac Foundation were made.
With the inaugural Neurodiversity Awareness Night being a great success for both the Chiefs and their partners, the opportunity to make the themed night a yearly occurrence is certainly in discussion.
