The clock reads 4:45 p.m., a little more than two hours before the Stanley Cup-champion St. Louis Blues will host the Pittsburgh Penguins for a Saturday night of hockey in St. Louis. Holly Connor, the 5-foot-2, blonde-haired, blue-eyed soprano singing the national anthem on this night walks through an entrance at Enterprise Center and grabs a handrail.



“One, two, three, four …” Connor says softly, counting the 31 stairs as she descends to ice level for the pregame call.



“She counts stairs,” said Katie Sears, her mother.



Sears doesn’t know why. She doesn’t know if it’s because Holly is visually impaired or because she’s autistic. The 15-year-old is both.



“It might be something that blind people, in general, do because you do get familiar with your surroundings,” Sears said. “She understands, ‘OK, there’s 10 stairs, then there’s another set of 10 and another set...