On Wednesday night, for 13 minutes, there was barely a whisper outside Calgary’s Saddledome. Some sniffling, the sound of a few tears being stifled. Thousands standing together, sharing their grief over the death of former Calgary Flames player Johnny Gaudreau and his brother, Matthew.
The NHL winger, who had spent the first nine years of his career with the Flames before signing with the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2022 to be closer to family, was killed alongside his kid brother on Aug. 29 after being struck by an alleged drunk driver. Two young men, out for a bike ride the night before their sister was set to get married.
As The Globe’s Cathal Kelly wrote in his column after the tragic news came to light: “You don’t usually find sports superstars who make career choices based on family and geography rather than status and money. But Mr. Gaudreau was an unlikely star, which often makes for an unusual one.”
Sadly, what isn’t unusual, was the unnecessary deaths of two young men by someone allegedly behind the wheel of a vehicle after consuming multiple alcoholic drinks.
Just this year, RCMP said they pulled 101 drunk drivers from Alberta roads during the Canada Day long weekend. And that’s a far cry from the 173 drivers removed from the road during the Victoria Day weekend. Who knows how many people got away with it? Who knows how many near misses there were?
In the United States, where the Gaudreau brothers were killed, on average, 37 people die every day from alcohol-related impaired driving crashes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Outside the Saddledome, Gaudreau jerseys, hockey sticks and flowers blanketed the steps of the Flames’ home arena. A similar scene and a matching vigil took place in Columbus on Wednesday night as well.
As players, coaches and the public gathered to remember the Gaudreau brothers in Calgary, it was clear “Johnny Hockey” had left an indelible mark on Alberta’s biggest city.
People came from all over to pay their respects. Cecil Whitehead drove more than seven hours from Peace River, Alta., placing a black hat with a Flames logo at the base of the massive memorial.
“When I see all of this, I feel hurt. I can’t believe it. I still can’t believe it,” he told The Globe.
Lindsay Hamilton, a lifelong Calgary resident and Flames fan, said she felt inspired to paint in Gaudreau’s memory, which she did sitting near the growing memorial earlier in the week.
“I just felt drawn to being at the ‘dome,” she said in an interview Wednesday. “It was almost like feeling closer to Johnny.”
Calgary’s urban cycling community paid tribute to the brothers during a monthly ride known as Critical Mass, which takes place the last Friday of every month. Organizers encouraged participants to wear Flames gear for the ride on Aug. 30, the day the Gaudreau family announced the brothers’ deaths.
Roughly 300 cyclists joined, pausing at the Saddledome for about five minutes in quiet contemplation.
The purpose of the Critical Mass ride “is to be always mindful that biking, especially in urban areas, can be dangerous,” rider Almoonir Dewji said. “The fact that this happened for Johnny, it felt somber in a sense that an incident like this, in a split second, just changed the life of so many people.”
And like all deaths from impaired driving, preventable and unnecessary.
This is the weekly Alberta newsletter written by Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.