Author Archives: Michael Liotta

My name is Daniel Alexander Rigato. I was born in Clearwater, Florida and lived there for eleven years. When I was seven, I was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome. As a child, my tics were almost non-existent. I was very calm and would only occasionally have bouts of large frequent movements. As I got older, they started to become more prevalent in my daily life to the point where they were making my daily routine very difficult for me. But thanks to my family, friends and peers that I have met over the years I was able to get though my dark time and come back stronger than ever. My tics have gone down a bit recently but the still occasionally go up. I’m currently looking for various ways to decrease them. When my family moved back to Canada, I was diagnosed with ASD (formally Asperger’s Syndrome). My parents started looking for special needs only schools and extra curricular programs for me and I wasn’t used to it at first because I had only attended the regular public school systems in the past. I didn’t start becoming aware of what I had until later. The SHI League was one of the first extra-curricular programs I was enrolled in and at first I wasn’t aware that the people that I was playing with all had disabilities. I instantly connected with them and a lot are still friends with me today.
When I found out that for one of my school assignments, I was going to make a short film documentary about any topic I wanted. I knew exactly what the topic would be. A lot of people can’t really tell that I have ASD and Tourette’s syndrome just by taking a look at me. People were always shocked when I told them. I felt like this was a perfect to show people who I really am through a visual medium. I chose to use the SHI Grandravine Tornadoes as my subject to base my story around because it’s a program that, despite being international, very few people know about it. I thought, not only can I bring more awareness of the league, but also tell a good story about how just by playing really helped me with all sorts of life skills that got me to this point in college. Luckily my father and I knew a lot of inside people on the team and we knew that our friends would love to take part in this project. I hope you enjoy it.