Rest in Peace Johnny & Matthew Gaudreau
Finding any words after hearing the tragic news of both Johnny and Matty Gaudreau, whose lives were taken on the night of Thursday, August 29th, was useless. We didn’t know them, or anyone in their family, but all of us who are brought together by hockey in general all feel we’ve lost something with their deaths.
The evening before they were to walk their sister Katie down the aisle as groomsmen, they were struck by an apparent drunk driver, and the outpour of emotional tributes from their family, friends, teammates, colleagues, classmates, and all the rest of us has been impossible to avoid. With each article, social post, and news segment, we’ve seen how much the two meant to anyone they crossed paths with. The brothers were by all accounts an inseparable pair, known for pushing each other to be their best while at Boston College, and us knowing they were together in their last moments somehow makes it better and worse all at once. Johnny, 31, being a household name and top-scoring winger for the Flames and recently the Blue Jackets, and Matty, 29, a high-level player himself who spent time in the AHL, ECHL, and in Sweden and who’d been moving along in a career as a coach at Gloucester Catholic High School his hometown in Southern New Jersey, the school both brothers played for growing up. It’s hard to think that both Johnny’s kids and Matthew’s unborn baby will be without two men who made such an impact in their short lives with us, both on the ice and off.
It has been a tough few days for the hockey community, and we can only hope more quotes and photos from the people they touched will continue to flood our feeds. Brian Burke, who was President of Hockey Ops for the Flames during Johnny's tenure, summed it up as well as anyone Tuesday morning on NHL Network Radio with, “You hear in these types of accidents, everyone says ‘Oh they’re great kids, they’re great kids’. Well, a lot of them aren’t. A lot of them are just okay kids. A lot of them are not great kids at all. But when you hear someone say a great kid (is lost) in our game of hockey, almost all of them are great kids... The Gaudraeu boys were doing great things”.
We've gathered some of our favorite tributes below.
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