When you think of an athlete in their prime, what is the first thing you think of? Incredible fitness, discipline, achievements, and wealth may be some of the first things that come to your mind. Due to their young ages and physical strength, athletes seem even more immortal than most celebrities. Pillars of what everyone wished they could have been, and with such dedication to their craft that you question their humanity. They seem at times so astonishing that they could be robots, and in some cases, the roboticism is an athlete’s entire persona. Think Conor McDavid, Max Verstappen, Erling Haaland, and many others, who seem to win and win without a care in the world for competitiveness and parity. However, there was also a rarer breed of athletes out there – ones that seemed like genuinely good people, and who looked like their sport was a hobby that they just so happened to be good at, like an accident they stumbled into while they were in the middle of helping old ladies and getting cats down from trees. That was Johnny Gaudreau. That’s what made it so devastating that, when, late Thursday night, we lost him at the oh-so-young age of 31.
It’s a cliche when you talk about the deceased to say “They were such a nice person” and “They lit up any room they walked into”, but with Johnny, that was actually true. Drafted 104th in the 2011 draft, Gaudreau never had it easy. He was born into a family with 3 other siblings in Salem, New Jersey, and fought at every step up the ranks. Standing at 5’6” and 150 lbs, Gaudreau was always the shortest guy on his team, and it meant that he needed to play extra well to get playing time. To add to that, Gaudreau’s short stature and great abilities created the perfect combination for enforcers on opposition teams to bully him around every chance they had. Despite this, Gaudreau’s attitude never changed. He had a similar trait to players like football’s Lionel Messi in that he always kept humble, in interviews and life. On draft day 2011, Gaudreau was so certain he wasn’t getting picked that night that he signed himself up to play in a local hockey tournament on the same night as the draft, and only knew about his selection when his mom, who’d been keeping up with the news that night and was in the stands, started screaming from her seat when she saw.
Gaudreau kept up this kind of mentality throughout his career, and just played hockey because he genuinely loved the sport. He was the type of person who I feel never really cared if he was making the big bucks or not, as long as he was playing the sport he loved and was with the people he loved. At Calgary, he had it tough at the start. He didn’t play for the Flames straight away, playing D1 Hockey with the Boston Eagles with his brother, Matthew, for a few years after being drafted, absolutely dominating in the scene, even getting serious minutes in the USA’s 2013 World Juniors win, in a tournament which got him the nickname “Johnny Hockey” in the same period as Manziel-mania. He finally got his chance with the big boys after re-signing with the Flames and finally making an appearance at the end of the 13/14 season, when in the last game for the Flames of the season, he played his first game for them and scored his first goal in a loss to Vancouver.
Gaudreau’s rise after that was meteoric, being invited to the 2015 All-Star Skills competition and All-Star Game, scoring 64 points. He went on to become one of the league’s best, seemingly out of nowhere, and ended his time with the Calgary Flames as one of the best players in their history, having played 602 games, netting 210 goals and 609 points, 115 of which coming in his final season, seeing him finish only 8 points off Conor McDavid in the Art Ross trophy for most points. His sportsmanship and great personality were also rewarded when, in 2017, Gaudreau won the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy for sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct.
However, more than his playing career, Johnny Gaudreau put his family #1. He married his wife in 2021, and had two kids with her. In 2022, Gaudreau left the Flames to move back to the states with the Columbus Blue Jackets, where he could be closer to his family. After the move, Gaudreau had a noticeable change into becoming a father, and while it seemed odd for the baby-faced Gaudreau to suddenly be in that role, it seemed like he’d be a great father.
Sadly, we’d never really get to see it. On the night of August 29th, 2024, Johnny was doing something that, if you’d read to this point so far, you wouldn’t be surprised he was doing; riding a bicycle with his brother, back home near his home county of Salem, New Jersey, the night before their sister’s wedding, until both lives were tragically taken from us after being hit by a drunk driver.
Matthew Gaudreau was also a hockey player, 2 years Johnny’s junior, the two grew up together in New Jersey before Johnny went off to take his hockey career more seriously, and even reunited for a year in Boston while in college. Tragically, Matthew was married only earlier this month, and the couple is expecting a baby in and around New Year’s. The loss of him is as devastating as the loss of Johnny, and makes this tragedy so much worse.
On the night of August 29th, 2024, we lost two great people, two brothers, two sons to parents, a father of two and a father to be, two husbands, and two great people, through no fault of their own. My thoughts and prayers go out to parents Guy and Jane Gaudreau, Johnny’s wife Meredith, Matthew’s wife Madeline, Johnny’s former Flames teammate Sean Monahan, who joined the Blue Jackets this offseason to reunite with his friend Gaudreau, Johnny’s children, Noa and Johnny Jr, and Matthew’s unborn child, all of whom will now have to grow up without fathers, unfairly ripped from them at such a big moment for them in their lives, their sister Katie, whose wedding will either have to be postponed or happen after such tragic events, as well as everybody else affected by this incident who I haven’t named here. It still doesn’t feel real to me, as well as the NHL community, and all of us will have to take some time to process these events.
Rest in Peace, Matthew Gaudreau.
Rest in Peace, Johnny Gaudreau.