Calgary Flames' Johnny Gaudreau skates during team practice in Calgary, on July 14, 2020. Gaudreau and his brother Matthew were killed in late August when they were hit by a car while riding bicycles in their home state of New Jersey.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
On the morning of Aug. 30, Blake Coleman awoke to a jarring text from a friend that said, “You were a friend of Johnny Gaudreau’s, right?”
The Calgary Flames forward’s heart sank.
He looked online and found a report saying Johnny Gaudreau and his brother had died the night before.
“I didn’t think it was real,” Coleman said.
Once he knew it was, he woke his wife, Jordan.
“We broke down,” Coleman said. “I don’t think I am ever going to get past it.”
Gaudreau signed with Columbus as a coveted free agent during the 2022 off-season to be closer to his hometown and family on the East Coast. He and his brother Matthew were riding bicycles when they were struck and killed by an alleged drunk driver on Aug. 29. The brothers were in New Jersey for their sister Katie’s wedding the following day.
Family defined Gaudreau’s life and his career, and family would also define his death.
Johnny Gaudreau was 31 and the father of two young children with a third on the way. Matthew was 29 and he and his wife were expecting their first child in December. One was a star in the NHL, the other had become a high school hockey coach.
Coleman’s wife was close friends with Johnny’s wife, Meredith.
“We have kids the same age,” Coleman said. “To put yourself in those shoes is terrible.”
Johnny Gaudreau played nine seasons in Calgary where he became the face and the heart of the team, and his decision to join the Blue Jackets left the Flames and their fans deeply morose, even as Calgary’s general manager Brad Treliving said he had “nothing but respect for John the player and John the person.”
“We were together for many years and developed a strong relationship,” said Treliving, who is now the Maple Leafs’ general manager. “And with John it wasn’t just about him, it was about him and his family.”
News of the Gaudreau boys’ deaths shredded a sleepy late summer morning and devastated the hockey world. Fans left thousands of sticks and jerseys and bouquets at memorials outside Calgary’s Saddledome and Nationwide Arena in Columbus.
Candlelight vigils were held in both cities. In Columbus a moment of silence lasted 13 minutes 21 seconds. Johnny wore number 13 for most of his career; Matthew wore 21 when the two played together for one season at Boston College. In Calgary, where thousands gathered, Canadian country music star George Canyon played a haunting version of Johnny B. Goode.
Fans attend a vigil for former Calgary Flames player Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matthew in Calgary, on Sept. 4.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
“I didn’t know a single person who didn’t like him,” said Lewis Gross, Gaudreau’s agent.
When Gaudreau was 17 he ranked among the leading scorers in the United States Hockey League. Later he won the Hobey Baker Award that is given annually to the NCAA’s top player.
Despite his obvious talent he lasted until the fourth round of the 2011 NHL draft. At the time he was 5 feet 6 and 137 pounds.
Craig Conroy, a former Flames player who is now the club’s general manager, remembered that draft.
In Gross, Conroy and Gaudreau shared the same agent. Minutes before Calgary was about to pick him, Conroy texted Gross and said, “I see you but I don’t see Johnny.”
“I didn’t bring him,” Gross said. “I was afraid if people saw him they might not take him.”
In the NHL, Gaudreau was listed as 5-foot-9 and 163 pounds but admitted it might be an exaggeration. During a weigh-in at training camp once, he taped pucks around his waist to appear heavier, but they fell out of his pants.
“Everybody said he was small and doubted whether he could play in the NHL,” Conroy said. “John was one of the first guys that changed that perspective.”
He scored a goal in his one and only game with the Flames in 2014. And then he just kept on scoring. He had 30 or more goals twice and 40 and 115 points in his best season in 2021-22, his last in Calgary.
“He was just electric, like a little cartoon superhero,” said Ryan Leslie, who has covered the Flames for Sportsnet for nearly a decade. “He had a way of proving everyone wrong.”
Leslie would occasionally drive Gaudreau around Calgary and they would stop at random rinks. Gaudreau would go inside unannounced and hand out Flames scarves and other souvenirs.
“He was the most lovable, fun-loving guy,” Leslie said.
In interviews, Gaudreau appeared shy. In private with teammates he was the life of the party.
“Once you got to know him he was like an undercover funny guy,” said Rasmus Andersson, Calgary’s alternate captain. “I miss calling him. We talked quite a bit. Once you became friends with him you were friends for life.”
Andersson and Gaudreau served as best men this summer at the wedding of former teammate Andrew Mangiapane.
“We spent 72 hours together,” Andersson recalled. “I’m really glad I got to spend that time with him. I miss him so dearly.”
A sticker honoring the lives of Matthew and Johnny Gaudreau is seen on the helmet worn by Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Erik Gudbranson on Oct. 10.Matt Krohn/Reuters
Early in the morning of Aug. 30, Andersson’s wife, Tess, received a text message urging her to call Mangiapane’s wife, Claudia.
The Anderssons were back home in Sweden. Tess called and learned that the Gaudreau brothers had been killed.
“Andrew broke the news to me,” Andersson said. “It has been tough ever since. I still have a hard time believing it.”
Players on all 32 NHL teams will wear a sticker on their helmets honouring the Gaudreaus – their numbers 13 and 21 on either side of a ‘G’ – to start the season. Cole Caufield, the Canadiens young star and a fan of Johnny Gaudreau’s as he grew up, has switched his jersey number to 13. The Blue Jackets and Florida Panthers will wear Gaudreau sweaters during warm-ups before Columbus’s first home game on Tuesday. On Wednesday the Canucks shared a pregame video and donated $50,000 to a charity of the Gaudreau family’s choosing. On Saturday, when Calgary plays its first home game, highlights of Gaudreau’s greatest moments will be shown.
A couple of years ago when Gaudreau returned to the Saddledome for the first time as a Blue Jacket he was booed. A little while later he received a standing ovation.
“I’ve always been a Johnny fan,” Randy Foster said on Wednesday as he watched the Flames’ opener at Trolley 5, a sports bar on Calgary’s well-worn Red Mile. “We got to watch him grow from a young man into a superstar. You couldn’t have asked for a better person to represent Calgary.”
Flames fans Randy Foster, right and Ervin Adem watch a Calgary Flames game at Trolley 5 Brewpub.LEAH HENNEL/The Globe and Mail
This is the second year that the Flames have carried heartbreak into the season.
In 2023, less than two weeks before it started, the club’s assistant general manager, Chris Snow, died after a long and tenacious battle with ALS.
“I’ve never seen anything like this as long as I have been in hockey,” Conroy said.
“Everyone in Calgary was invested in the Gaudreau family,” said Kelsie Smith Snow, Chris’s widow. “I felt gutted in a way I hadn’t felt since Chris died. It’s a unique kind of pain that is hard to describe.
“I thought about Johnny’s family, his mom and dad, his sisters and wife. There are no words for that devastation. I thought about that room and moment in the hospital when you get that news and your life pivots. Everything you have imagined your life to be is gone.”