BOSTON – Flowers, sticks, bags of Skittles and bottles of purple Gatorade form a vigil outside Conte Forum, the home rink of “Johnny Hockey,” when he and his brother played at Boston Collegetogether, for one season.
A decade later they died John and Matthew Gaudreau have left a huge impact on the BC hockey community and have left an indelible mark.
Funeral Service Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau
They will be buried Monday in a funeral service outside Philadelphia, but their impact on the school in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, will not soon be forgotten, nor will everything they did from New Jersey to Calgary to Columbus and beyond.
“Everyone knows how talented they were on the ice, especially Johnny — an all-world type of Olympian and college All-Star — but both of those players brought so much excitement to our locker room and to the dorms and just to the academic environment at BC,” former coach Jerry York said. “They left a tremendous impression on all of us. We’re going to miss the hockey performances they always had with us, but more importantly who they were as young guys.”
John was 31 and Matthew was 29 when they beaten and killed the night of August 29 while cycling in their home state of New Jersey by a suspected drunk driver on the eve of their sister Katie’s wedding. The grief spread the next morning.
“We go to the gym and everyone’s got a knot in their stomach,” said Cutter Gauthier, who helped BC reach the Frozen Four finals last spring before making his NHL debut with Anaheim. “He obviously had a tremendous legacy at Boston College. … To see that, it’s really heartbreaking.”
From Boston College to the NHL
The oldest Gaudi brother was a point-a-game player as a freshman when he and the Eagles won the national title in 2012. The Calgary Flames, who had drafted him in the fourth round the year before as an undersized prospect with a lot of talent, tried that summer and the next to convince the family that John was ready to go pro.
Then-Flames general manager Jay Feaster knew once Matthew committed to BC that there was no way to bring John to Calgary before the brothers had a chance to play together. That season was Gaudreau’s best, leading the nation with 36 goals, 44 assists and 80 points and winning the Hobey Baker Award as the NCAA’s most outstanding player.
“He was someone I watched as a kid,” said Macklin Celebrini, the 2023 Hobey Baker winner out of Boston University and the No. 1 NHL draft pick out of San Jose. “It’s a tragedy. You never really expect something like that to happen, and even if you don’t know him that well, it hits you hard.”
BC coach Greg Brown said everyone around the program has been in a daze since hearing the news, including BC alumni.
“You just don’t get over stuff like that,” said Kevin Stevens, who played there in the ’80s before going on to a long pro career in the NHL. “It’s going to affect a lot of people, and me, for a long time.”
Remembering “Johnny Hockey”
Will Smith grew up in Massachusetts as a self-proclaimed “BC superfan” and said Gaudreau was his idol. Asked what John meant to the school, Smith said, “Everything.”
“Even his nickname, ‘Johnny Hockey,’ is something that will last forever,” Smith said this week at the NHLPA rookie showcase. “He was a very special player for that program.”
Smith, now with the Sharks, had the chance to play with Gaudreau for the U.S. at the World Championships in Prague earlier this year, and he learned just as much on the ice as he did off the ice.
“He always made us laugh,” Smith said. “One day we went golfing — a little BC group — it was Kevin Hayes, Johnny, Ryan Leonard and me. It was just a day we went out there, played golf and it was one of those days I’ll remember.”
BC assistant coach Mike Ayers recalls an interaction long after Gaudreau had turned pro and become an NHL star, in which he saw him inexplicably stop and start his car on campus to play “Pokémon GO” on his phone.
“That was him. That was just his way of having fun,” Ayers said. “He was just a carefree kid.”
The Gaudreau brothers are making an impact off the ice
Since their deaths, Ayers has talked more about how John and Matthew behaved outside of hockey than what they did in the sport they loved.
“Matty was a big scorer here his senior year,” Ayers said. “He was a big player for us, and Johnny obviously had a million accolades, but you’d never know it from seeing them or being around them. They were just down-to-earth, good people.”
The hockey spoke for itself. Lane Hutson, a Montreal prospect who played the past two seasons at Boston University, said of Gaudreau, “Every time he touched the puck, it was a highlight.”
Sometimes when he spoke, too. Pittsburgh’s Rutger McGroarty, who went to Michigan, rewatched Gaudreau’s Hobey Baker acceptance speech and heard a lot about what he was like as a person from his best friend Adam Fantilli, a teammate of John’s on the Columbus Blue Jackets.
“What he said about him: Just not a bad thing to say about the guy,” McGroarty said. “Just a smile on his face every day, coming in, laughing but also going to work.”
Boston College honors Gaudreau brothers
Games are on at BC. The school held a moment of silence for the Gaudreau brothers — as well as Tony Voce, a former BC hockey player and Philadelphia Flyer who also passed away this summer — before Saturday’s game home football game against Duquesne.
The college season begins next month, as it does in the NHL and the rest of sports, and the pain of the Gaudreaus’ losses will remain.
“It’s going to be a tough one,” Stevens said. “That’s a tough one. That’s going to bother us for a long time.”
