The cruelest day in hockey, squared

The senseless death of the Gaudreau brothers happened at the very doorstep of celebration.

The wedding was scheduled for Friday, in downtown Philadelphia, 33 miles from where they found the bodies and the bicycles.

Katie Gaudreau went to Gloucester Catholic High in South Jersey, just like her brothers Johnny and Matthew. Devin Joyce played hockey there, too. Katie and Devin had their rehearsal early Thursday evening. 

Johnny had married Meredith, another local girl, and she would be Katie’s maid of honor. Their 2-year-old daughter Noa would be a flower girl at the wedding, and their 7-month-old son Johnny would be a ring bearer. Matthew’s wife Madeline was expecting their first baby, a boy named Tripp, in about four months.

All of that, and life as the Gaudreaus once knew it, disappeared in the time it takes a drunken driver to make a decision.

At about 8:20 p.m. Thursday, a Jeep Cherokee plowed into two bikes on State Road 611, and Johnny and Matthew are dead.

The story is being told through muted, cracking voices throughout Canada and the United States, because Johnny Gaudreau, 31, was an absolute original, a fourth-round pick who won NCAA, USHL and World Juniors championships even though he barely nudged his way past 5-foot-6 as a professional.

But it’s not the right story without Matthew, whose career at Boston College intersected with Johnny’s for one season. Matthew played in the minors for a while, and now he was the head coach at Gloucester Catholic. Both kids learned how to skate at Hollydell Arena, where their father Guy was the manager. And when it was time for Guy to teach Johnny how to skate, he lured his son by stationing Skittles all over the ice.

Rarely has a sports tragedy carried such deep cruelty. Guy’s brother Jim spoke for the family: “Last night we lost two husbands, two fathers, two sons, two brothers, two sons and brothers in law, two nephews, two cousins, two family members, two teammates, two friends but truly two amazing humans.”

Johnny was a human monument in Calgary. He won over his fellow Flames during his first exhibition season, when he endured the physical hazing from giant defensemen. Asked by general manager Brian Burke why he kept taking the hits, Gaudreau said, “I want the respect of my teammates. I don’t want to be a matador.” Burke replied that the Flames very much wanted Gaudreau to be a matador, to dodge the stampede without taking it on. It turned out that durability wasn’t a problem. Those with the worst intentions couldn’t catch him. Gaudreau played 602 Flames games and scored 609 points. He also won a Lady Byng Trophy in 2017 by committing only two penalties for the season.

“He played on the (U.S.) World Championship team in Belarus in 2014 and everybody wanted to play with him after just one practice,” Burke said. “But to me the best thing about him was the way he dealt with the community. Anything we asked him to do, he did.”

In 2019 the Flames asked him for greatness and he found it. Gaudreau led the NHL in plus-minus that year (plus-64), a distinction that usually goes to defensemen. He was playing on a top line with Sean Monahan and Elias Lindholm, and they celebrated each goal by swigging purple Gatorade on the bench. On the steps of Calgary’s Saddledome Friday, fans left Skittles and Gatorade bottles.

Gaudreau had 119 points and was a first-team All-Star that season. When the Flames were trying to figure out Dallas goalie Jake Oettinger in the first round of the playoffs, Gaudreau was the first to spot a loose puck and fired it past Oettinger to win the series. He always did that, always found the most bloodthirsty way to score the biggest goal. At the Frozen Four, with Boston College leading Ferris State 2-1 at the 3-minute mark, Gaudreau got loose, advanced the puck with his skate, went forehead-to-backhand in a fingersnap, and drilled the final goal of the tournament. He won the Hobey Baker Award, the Heisman of college hockey.

But Calgary, as a community, had one problem. It was two time zones away from South Jersey. Gaudreau became a free agent and analyzed the situation as only a Gaudreau could. Which team has the salary cap wherewithal to sign me and yet is as close as possible to all the other Gaudreaus, and which city looks the most family-friendly? Turned out to be Columbus, home of the ever-struggling Blue Jackets. Gaudreau signed for seven years and $68 million. The team didn’t win in his two years there, and Gaudreau’s stats weren’t overwhelming, but he and Meredith and the kids had five years of family bliss ahead.

As our politicians continue to rail against provocative books and open borders, they and everyone else choose to ignore the fentanyl pandemic and the long-standing carnage on our roads, accelerated by drunkards. Sean Higgins was the catalyst this time. According to police, he was trailing two vehicles on 611, and when the car in front of him went into the empty adjacent lane to give the Gaudreaus some room, Higgins tried to pass that car on the right side, never seeing the cyclists. He was charged with two counts of death-by-auto.

Higgins told the cops that he had downed “five or six beers,” presumably coinciding with the Gaudreaus’ rehearsal. He was told he would be detained until Thursday and became indignant. How dare the state waste his time? 

In 2022, thirty-two percent of U.S. traffic fatalities were tied to alcohol. Drunk driving caused 13,524 deaths, a 33 percent increase over 2019, the last pre-Covid-19 year. Cars become assault weapons when operated by a drunk. They spread carnage indiscriminately. It is hoped Sean Higgins, if convicted, will hand the state many years of his time.

As for the wedding, it will happen someday, as the remaining Gaudreaus tighten their circle. But don’t expect this to “sink in.” It’s a long way to the bottom of those emotions, even to the point of comprehension, even with a whole sport opening its arms as wide as it can. What the Gaudreaus lost can never be accurately calculated. What hockey lost was a village.