A legacy of hope and laughter for Gaudreau brothers as family, friends and hockey community grieves

WESTVILLE, N.J. — The family called him John. It wasn't until John Gaudreau played for Boston College that he picked up the ''Johnny Hockey'' nickname that followed him through 11 seasons in the NHL.

His mother, Jane, gleefully recalled the ''Johnny Hockey'' T-shirts and sing-song chants BC fans bestowed on their beloved wizard on the ice. At home in New Jersey, older brother Matthew, who also played hockey for Boston College, and sisters Kristen and Katie couldn't help but tease their brother with the nickname as his popularity and All-Star career grew through stops in Calgary and Columbus.

Take one night during the NHL Awards in Las Vegas, just one family story out of thousands of favorites, when Gaudreau tried to keep a low public profile on a family outing. Katie wasn't having it out on the Strip, shouting for all to hear, ''Johnny! Johnny Hockey!''

''I can see John's face getting redder and redder and redder,'' Jane Gaudreau said with a laugh. ''You walk down the street and no one knows who you are until Katie started making this whole big thing.''

Everything was fine for the family when they gathered last August for Katie's wedding. John and Matt were the groomsmen and Kristen the maid of honor. What happened next, the typhoon of shock and grief that rippled from New Jersey through the heart of the hockey community, has been well-documented over the last eight months. The night before the wedding, John, 31, and Matt, 29, died after they were hit by a suspected drunken driver while riding bicycles in the Delaware River country south of Philadelphia, leaving a family forever shattered, with not enough time to ever fully pick up all the pieces.

They try.

From births to hockey tributes, through Instagram pages dotted with photos from the family scrapbook and a new foundation, to a playground fundraising effort at the family's beloved school, the Gaudreaus have pushed through dark days when even getting out of bed seemed impossible. They pull through, pull together, just as they did as a family of six in South Jersey, and try to focus on a simple mantra: Live their lives to the fullest in honor of Matt and John.

There is more hardship ahead and dark days are going to come and go. The driver charged with killing the brothers, a man prosecutors described as having a history of alleged road rage and aggressive driving, still faces trial.

But as Jane Gaudreau details her dream of a new, adaptive playground for the special education students at the school where she works, it's the good times that stir the most memories. Like when John playfully threatened to stab Katie with a fork at a restaurant for not finishing a stack of pancakes and surprisingly — and gently — followed through.

It's the stories that lift the spirits of Jane, husband Guy and countless friends and teammates who went through their first hockey season in decades without two men who gave so much to their growing families and to the game.

''It's great to keep their memories alive,'' said their sister, Kristen Venello, who rocks her Blue Jackets hoodie as a speech assistant at Archbishop Damiano School. ''It is sad. But you think about all the good things they did and that's all you can think about. And how much they can help us still.''

The project

Archbishop Damiano School was founded in 1968 for children with Down syndrome and now provides services for 125 students with special needs from ages 3 to 21. Jane Gaudreau's brother attended the school and their mother worked there for 44 years. Jane was hired in 1984 and is still a finance associate there. Kristen, the oldest daughter, has taught at the school for almost two decades. Katie used to assist with the kids when she could and the two Gaudreau boys volunteered at the school when they weren't playing hockey.

In death, they can perhaps leave a permanent legacy at Damiano outside family and hockey.

Kelsie Snow lost her husband, Chris, a former assistant general manager with the Calgary Flames, in 2023 to Lou Gehrig's disease. She called Jane with a suggestion on how to navigate life through perpetual grief: Keep busy. Find a project. Jane and Guy embraced the idea and searched for the right one, until they realized the answer was right there at Archbishop Damiano.

The Gaudreaus and the staff at Archbishop Damiano threw themselves into fundraising for a modern playground that allows for everything from basic wheelchair accessibility to ramps and transfer platforms for the students. Students tacked their wish list for the playground -- wheelchair swings and even a sand box -- to the walls inside the school.

The Gaudreau Family 5K set for May 31 is expected to bring needed cash to the initiative launched by principal Michele McCloskey in October 2020. Raising the necessary funds over the last five years had been a slow build. So many friends from the hockey world and others now inspired by the brothers and the cause have since rallied around the effort.

''I know the boys would be proud of us,'' Jane said. ''Both boys loved children, that's why we thought the playground would be perfect.''

The Gaudreaus have another, more enduring project ahead of them as doting grandparents. Both widows have given birth since their husbands died. Meredith, who revealed during her tearful eulogy for John in August that she was pregnant, gave birth in April to the couple's third child, Carter Michael Gaudreau. Madeline delivered her and Matty's first baby, Tripp Matthew Gaudreau, in December.

Jane laughs when she describes how much the new additions resemble their fathers. Tripp has light hair like his dad; Carter looks like big sister Noa, and they both look like John.

''My husband keeps saying this,'' Jane said, ''‘I think God sent us John and Matty back.‘''

Guy Gaudreu, a former hockey coach at Hollydell Ice Arena and Gloucester Catholic High School in New Jersey, had his sons on the ice at 2 years old and he's already making plans for Carter and Tripp. Matthew played for the junior ice hockey Omaha Lancers for two years, and when the family was invited back last month for a tribute night, Guy amused the family as he gave baby Tripp an introduction.

''He was like, smell the ice, this is the locker room,'' Jane said with a laugh. ''We're used to that. He's just crazy like that. I was looking at (Madeline) and she was just laughing, shaking her head.''

The Gaudreaus have kept busy, with fundraising, teaching and various outings that celebrated their sons. Guy has perhaps been at the rink the most since losing the boys. He joined practices for the Blue Jackets and spent time as a guest instructor this season with the Flyers. He hit the ice in Montreal and helped out Team USA at the 4 Nations Face-Off. The Gaudreaus led the Blue Jackets out of the tunnel at Ohio Stadium in front of nearly 95,000 fans at the NHL Stadium Series.

''I know sometimes we'll hear people, oh, this poor family, they have to go through this again,'' Jane said. ''But it's been quite healing. Through this, I've had so many people tell stories of what Matthew or John has done for them, or a hospital, or other people. They appreciate everything the boys did. They were grieving, too. It was a way for us to get out there and talk to people, hear different stories.''

Jane needed a gentle nudge from some Blue Jackets to attend the team's annual Moms' Trip to a February game at Detroit. Defenseman Erik Gudbranson surprised Jane with a persuasive call for her attend the annual bonding trip. The other Blue Jackets moms were so supportive of her on the trip, she said, ''they knew if I was going to get upset before I even knew.''

''We needed her there,'' Gudbranson said. ''It wouldn't have felt right if she wasn't there.''

On the ice

Sean Monahan and Gaudreau became tight when the stars played together in Calgary, one reason the Blue Jackets center was persuaded by his friend to sign with the team last summer.

Monahan and his family settled near the Gaudreaus in the same Columbus suburb of New Albany, so close as neighbors Monahan counted just 25 steps between the two houses. After Gaudreau's death, Monahan couldn't even drive by his friend's house on his commute to the rink. He and his family have tried to serve as a steady source of support for Meredith and her three children. Monahan even met Carter Gaudreau the day he was born (''good looking little guy, just like John'').

The Blue Jackets dedicated the season to the Gaudreaus and raised John's No. 13 to the rafters. There's a patch on the jerseys and the Blue Jackets wore Avalon Surf Shop sweatshirts as part of their ''Johnny fit'' collection. The team never failed to hang Gaudreau's jersey in a locker stall for every game, home or away.

''He's supposed to be here with us,'' Monahan said. ''It's just one other thing we can do to keep his name around, keep his legacy going for such a special person.''

Motivated by the memory of their friend, the Blue Jackets were in the hunt for a playoff spot until the final week of the season. They fell two points shy, leaving the team with a ''what if?'' feeling over missing the playoffs while hurting over Gaudreau.

''It's something that weighs on my mind and it's something I think about every day," Monahan said. "There are no easy days, for sure. I try and live the way he did and it benefited me.''

Gudbranson also held Carter in the hospital and wrestled with the conflicting feelings of the joy over the birth with the sadness Gaudreau was not alive to meet his son.

''There's a part of you that says this feels wrong that I'm holding my buddy's son and he hasn't met him,'' Gudbranson said. ''That's hard to wrap your head around. Those kids will probably be 30 years old and I'll be thinking the same thing. I don't think that's going anywhere.''

Gudbranson said that in large part because of Gaudreau's influence, the season was a ''a lot more joyous this year. We've enjoyed being teammates.'' When the good times were rolling, the Blue Jackets tried to appreciate those moments just like Gaudreau did, the franchise player who was just one of the boys once the final horn sounded.

''Once the game was done, we were just buddies,'' Gudbranson said. ''He wasn't necessarily Johnny Hockey to us. The personal side matters to us the most. But yeah, we've had conversations like, can you imagine if this guy was on our team this year? How good would he have been with us this year? Holy smokes.''

The road ahead

Guy and Jane, married 42 years, almost never go out to dinner, overwhelmed by feelings of guilt over enjoying themselves, and those emotions also run deep with Katie. She told her mom, yes, she wanted to marry her fiancé, Devin Joyce, but wasn't sure a big wedding was the way to go. Jane said she simply told her there was no wrong decision, but to let the rage and sadness settle and take as much time as necessary make a decision.

The couple eventually rescheduled their wedding for July 11. Katie wrote on her Instagram post, ''I guess this year has taught me to celebrate our love everyday, every minute.''

''You know the boys, they'll be there with us that day,'' Jane said. ''They would want you to have fun.''

Jane added with resolve, ''This guy already took two of the most important things away from us. Don't let him take away your wedding.''

Katie reflected on that fateful night on an Instagram post how she had texted her fiancé ''we forgot to practice our dip,'' during rehearsal to how a ''phone call later, our lives would forever change.''

The couple will get a second chance at a wedding, this one in memory of their brothers.

''I think we'll all be able to get through the day,'' Jane said. ''I think it will be hard at first. We want to be there for her, support her. The other three had big weddings, it was so fun for our family to be together. I think it will be OK.''

The Gaudreaus want people to remember how the young men lived, not how they died. Sometimes that is difficult: In mid-April, there was a hearing for Sean Higgins, the man charged with reckless vehicular homicide in the Gaudreaus' deaths, only a few hours before the Blue Jackets played the Flyers nearby. The family skipped the game for the Gloucester Catholic High School Hall of Fame banquet where Matthew was posthumously inducted.

The Gaudreaus have kept their thoughts about the court proceedings private, though Jane did write a pair of inspirational quotes on Instagram later that day, including one that said, ''When you have a bad day — a really bad day — try and treat the world better than it treated you.''

A legacy of laughter

The 5K has filled its allotment of 1,000 runners for race day at a New Jersey park but anyone can contribute from home as a virtual participant. More than 700 people have already signed up, from New Jersey to Canada to Ireland, eager to help the cause, which includes an online memorabilia auction that stretches beyond hockey, with all proceeds donated toward the playground effort and its $600,000 goal.

Jane, 62, said it's hard to remember much through the haze of heartbreak from the funeral and memorial reception, only that she figured more than 1,000 people stopped by the family home to pay their respects. With some distance, the family hoped it would be comforting to see everyone at the 5K and thank them for their love and comfort.

The current playground doesn't meet the needs of its students in its current shape, there are gaping holes in the turf and the swings and slides were not designed for children with disabilities. If the goal is met, the school hopes to break ground this fall and complete the project next spring.

''As a school for serving people with multiple disabilities, we really don't get a lot of traction,'' said McCloskey, the school principal. ''I think through all the media attention, I think people see it, they see why this is important.''

It seems trite to call it a silver lining but the family has searched in vain to find some meaning, some good out of the senseless deaths.

So they'll run.

For John. For Matt. For a cause the boys so robustly supported in life.

''It's not the way I'd want to build the playground, of course,'' Jane said. ''I tend to believe they'll be up there, being able to listen to the children's laughter. They'll just really love the fact that the children will have a playground to play in.''

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