When the Gatto family first heard about Team IMPACT, they were unsure if it was right for them. Mom Sara was pretty set on participating, but dad Nick was on the fence. Their son, Logan, was not a fan of sports. No one in their family was really a fan of sports, and Nick was struggling to see what benefit his son could gain from the sports-centered program. “But now,” Nick said, “we’re a BU hockey family.”
This identity wasn’t always so easy for Logan and his family to find. Logan was not even a year old when he started having seizures—and once the seizures started, they happened frequently. His doctors thought he would grow out of them, but in the months after they began, he had had dozens more, and his parents were no closer to finding an answer why. When his neurologist ordered an EEG after a particularly tough string of seizures, Logan had a massive seizure in the middle of the test, proving to his doctors that this was an issue that wasn’t going to go away on its own. He was about a year and a half old at this point and experiencing seizures almost weekly.
The Gattos and their doctors worked for months to cover genetic testing that scanned the 300 most common causes of genetic epilepsy—tests that came back negative and got them no closer to a diagnosis. After another round of back-and-forth with their insurance, they were approved for a full exome sequencing, and finally they found something. But this something was so rare it didn’t even have a name. Because it was caused by a mutation on the HNRNPU gene, doctors simply called it an “HNRNPU-related disorder.” The way it presented in Logan, through epilepsy and developmental delays, was just one of countless presentations this group of ultra-rare disorders could cause. Even now, nearly eight years later, the Gattos have yet to meet another person with the same diagnosis as their son. But having a diagnosis meant having a plan. They met other HNRNPU families online, sharing stories and learning through their experiences. Their diagnosis community was small, but because of this diagnosis, the Gattos’ community grew.
Months before they became a hockey family, the Gattos had a front row seat to the magic of Team IMPACT through their close family friends, the Sabins, whose son Pierce is matched with the soccer team at BU. In fact, the Gattos and Sabins go way back. “I’ve known Jill [Sabin] since she was ten years old,” Nick said. Jill’s older brother is Nick’s childhood best friend, and as soon as Sara came into the picture, she and Jill bonded instantly. Now, with both their children matched on teams at Boston University through Team IMPACT, the Gatto and Sabin families have grown even closer. “It’s been amazing,” Nick said. “It’s been great having someone so close who also knows the struggles and issues that come along with having a kid with a disability.”
“It’s been wild,” Sara said of going through this journey with her best friend. “Even though Logan’s disability and Pierce’s are very, very different, as moms, Jill and I both understand where we’re coming from. If we’ve had a rough doctor’s appointment, if we’ve had a day where we’re just totally overwhelmed, even though our kids are very different, there’s still those similar mom concerns and feelings.”
The network of friends and support that the Gattos and Sabins have been building together for years grew exponentially when Team IMPACT came into their lives, in ways neither family ever expected. “It’s been amazing to have that person to lean on and be able to talk through things with,” Sara said, “and now with Team IMPACT, we know Maria [Valencia] (mom of Simon, Northeastern hockey) and Nar [Lee] (mom of Mia, Tufts field hockey), Melissa [Bello] (mom of Josh, Boston College hockey), and so many other families. As parents, that is invaluable. Of all the things we expected from Team IMPACT, this was something I didn’t expect. You go into it focused on everything with the team, you don’t necessarily think about the relationships you’re going to make with families from other schools and teams.”
As the Gattos continued to do more and more with the hockey team, they were exposed to not only student-athletes who changed their lives but a new group of families who understood exactly what they were going through. “Families in our world are constantly running from appointment to appointment and therapy to therapy to do the best for our kids,” Sara said. “Team IMPACT is a break from all of the hard stuff. We get to go and watch Logan light up and just be a kid playing with his favorite guys.” This relief and this new calmness was not something the Gattos anticipated when they got matched with the Terriers in the fall of 2022. “There are some things we just didn’t expect, and we certainly didn’t expect this,” Nick said. “During games when we’re playing a team that has a Team IMPACT match, we’ll meet up between periods and just chat, let the kids hang out for a few minutes. That’s not something we thought we were going to be doing but it’s amazing to do. It’s a nice little connection.”
Because the Gattos are matched with a hockey team in a part of the country where hockey is a pretty big deal, they’ve been able to meet multiple other families and teams with Team IMPACT matches. Since 2022, all four teams participating in Boston’s Beanpot Tournament—a city-wide hockey tournament that spans two weekends and includes Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern, and Harvard—participate in Team IMPACT and dedicate the tournament to their teammates Logan, Josh, Simon, and Parker. The four families now have an unique bond, spending time together on game days, attending Team IMPACT events together, and supporting one another on and off the ice. “It’s been really good as a learning experience for Logan too,” Sara added. “This year at the Beanpot, when our team and Simon’s team were playing against each other, Logan was sad that we lost, but we were able to be like, ‘It’s really sad for us and it’s really sad for our guys, but we can still be happy for Simon.’ Even that in itself is another lesson to learn. If he didn’t have that connection with Simon, or whoever we had been playing, if it had been Josh or Parker, I don’t think he would understand it quite as well.”
Months earlier, all four Beanpot teams came together for the first ever Team IMPACT Beanpot Ping Pong Tournament for some friendly competition and to raise awareness for Team IMPACT. This day stands out for Nick and Sara, not only because these teams, who are typically rivals on the ice, were bonding over their children, but because the room, mostly full of strangers, instantly felt like family. “The minute that we stepped in that building, the kids saw each other and disappeared,” Nick recalled. “They were lost in the sea of people, lost in the sea of hundreds of college hockey guys, people from Team IMPACT, parents; and none of us blinked an eye. None of us were concerned. To be able to do that around so many people says something about trust—the trust that you build with your team, even other teams, you know that they’re good people. You know that through this Team IMPACT connection, the goal is the same for every person in that building: It’s for the kids. You know you don’t have to think twice that if your kid’s not in eyeshot, you don’t have to panic, because you know they’re safe. And that’s something amazing.”
This feeling of safety continues to expand into all the places Logan goes with his teammates. During home games at Agganis Arena, Logan is a celebrity. Players’ parents, Agganis staff and security, BU students, even opposing teams, know Logan. “It’s nice to feel comfortable to be able to be among so many people and enjoy that environment and let your kid enjoy that environment,” Nick said. When Logan enters the arena, he is greeted with hellos, high-fives, and “Hey, that’s Logan!” from strangers and friends alike. He was recently stopped by BU alumni who wanted to say hello and make sure he got that game’s Terrier chain giveaway in the parking lot after a game. He even charmed his way past security at the NCAA regionals last year. When Logan makes his way to the ice or locker room before or after a game, security knows, like all his teammates, Logan’s part of the team.
Before games, Logan pumps his teammates up with cheers of “Let’s go, BU!,” passes time kicking a soccer ball or playing street hockey, and stands by the glass for good luck high-fives and fist bumps as his teammates leave the ice. These small moments of connection mean as much to the Gattos as the big wins and celebrations. “Whether it’s two minutes or ten minutes, just knowing that he’s there and he’s having fun, they don’t look at him like he’s a burden, they’re as happy to see him as he is to see them,” Sara said, “it means so much.”
If there is one moment that Nick and Sara remember that captures the magic of their time with the team, it’s last year’s Hockey East Championship game. The Terriers won, and Nick made his way to the ice with Logan on his hip. Logan was excited and overwhelmed, burying his head in his dad’s neck and not wanting to leave his side. But amidst all the celebration and excitement, the Terriers found their way to Logan. “So many different players took time out of their moment specifically to go over and say hi to Logan,” Sara recalled. “The fact that this is a huge moment for them and they still took that time to go over and see their buddy, that is just amazing. It was not something they had to do. I wouldn’t have thought twice if they were so in their moment, but the fact that he was there on their minds and they thought he needed to be included was just so, so amazing.”
Slowly, Logan’s nerves began to thaw and he began to understand the importance of that win. He celebrated as each of his teammates came over to him and smiled for photos with his champions. “That picture just evokes so much emotion, story…it just represents so much,” Nick said, thinking about a photo of Nick and his teammate Dylan Peterson on the ice after the win. “When I look at that picture, it really encapsulates everything we’ve experienced and everything Team IMPACT has given us.”
When Sara signed her son up for Team IMPACT, she didn’t know she was signing up for so much more than a team. Her son—and her entire family—found a community in BU, in hockey, and in Team IMPACT. Though Nick was hesitant at first, he knew Team IMPACT was the right choice for his family the minute they met the Terriers. “This goes beyond Logan and the team,” Nick said, recalling a time when his family traveled to Tampa for the Frozen Four. They were in the lobby of the hotel with all the players’ families after a tough loss when one of the players’ dads stopped Nick and said, “You’re Logan’s dad, right?” Nick said yes and this player’s dad continued, “I just want to say thank you. Thank for sharing your son with our son. We don’t get to see that side of our son much anymore, but when we get to talk to him, he talks about Logan. Who Logan is and how great he is and how he makes his day, and as a parent, I need to thank you, because you’ve given us something you don’t realize you’ve given.” Nick was caught off guard and realized in that moment how much his son has impacted athletes three times his age. “Some of these parents don’t live in this state. Some don’t even live in this country,” Nick said, “but when they come to games, they want to meet Logan. It blows by mind how far this relationship reaches beyond the team.” “We have the relationship with the team, but when I think of our relationship with BU, it’s so much more than that,” Sara continued. “It’s our coaches, our equipment managers, our student interns, media, the student section that is excited to see him. It’s all of that. They have been all in and immediately made us feel like family. Thank you for giving us a second home.”
Logan has come a long way from a diagnosis that left him feeling isolated to a community of people who accept him without question. “Logan has a place where he feels he belongs and a whole team of big brothers who look out for him,” Sara said. And because of this, the entire Gatto family gained a community too, solidifying them forever as a BU hockey family.
“You know, some things are meant to be,” Nick said, “and Team IMPACT is one of those things. The connections we’ve made through Team IMPACT, it was just meant to be. And we knew that on day one.”
