Getting a nickname in hockey is not only a sign of affection but a sense that a player has really made it. Wayne Gretzky became the “Great One,” Mario Lemieux was “Super Mario” and the late Gordie Howe remains “Mr. Hockey” to the sport’s players and fans everywhere.
“Johnny Hockey” was the one bestowed on Johnny Gaudreau, and it stuck to the talented, beloved player wherever he went. It was a reminder of his skills and unselfishness on and off the ice that made it all the more painful when word spread that the 31-year-old standout for the Columbus Blue Jackets died Thursday night along with younger brother Matthew when they were struck by a suspected drunken driver near their childhood home on the eve of their sister’s wedding in Philadelphia.
Gaudreau never got the chance to put together a full NHL career like Gretzky, Lemieux or Howe, yet everyone in the sport knew who he was: A kid from Carneys Point, New Jersey, who thrived despite being well under 6 feet tall, a pioneer of sorts for players who make up for a lack of size with skill, speed and energy.
The brothers grew up in hockey, playing for the Little Flyers and even getting to spend a year together as teammates at Boston College in 2013-14. It was the season Johnny Gaudreau won the Hobey Baker Award as the top NCAA player in the country, and his brother was there to be a part of it.
“Both Matty and Johnny were terrifically admired by all of us: Wonderful young guys, and they impressed a lot of us off ice,” recalled Jerry York, who coached them at BC.
The eldest Gaudreau brother, Johnny was picked by Calgary in the fourth round of the NHL draft in 2011. His boyhood team, the Philadelphia Flyers, were interested but only in later rounds, considering he was at the time about 5-foot-7 or so.
Flames head scout Tod Button had no trouble making a case for Gaudreau to then-general manager Jay Feaster, who knew all about undersized players from running the Tampa Bay Lightning when they won the Stanley Cup with dynamic — and small — Martin St. Louis as one of their best players.
“Tod and his staff had seen him play a lot, and he just felt that he was a special player: his hands and his vision and his hockey sense,” Feaster said Friday. “He was convinced, even though he’s a small guy, that he was going to be able to play. … I said: ‘I believe in you. If you believe in him that strongly, then let’s do it because I know that small guys can play in the game.’”
Feaster and assistant Craig Conroy the next couple of summers visited with Gaudreau and his family at Hollydell Ice Arena, which father Guy managed, to encourage Johnny to turn pro. His mother, Jane, wondered about her son’s size at the NHL level and had many questions about the next step.
Family, as always, came first.
“When it came around that his brother was going to be going to BC to play as well and they’d play together, Craig and I knew we weren’t going to get him out early,” Feaster said.
Following his college stardom and a year on campus together with his brother, Gaudreau broke into the league at 5-foot-9 and less than 180 pounds. He was voted to the all-rookie team in his first season. He made seven All-Star Weekend appearances over a decade with the Flames and Blue Jackets.
Along the way, he became Johnny Hockey to a far wider fan base than the faithful following Boston College.
“There are few players in hockey history who matched his passion and love for the game of hockey,” said longtime executive Brian Burke, who knew Gaudreau from his time running the Flames and the U.S. men’s national team. “His talent on the ice was enhanced, not diminished, by the fact that he was having fun out there.”
Gaudreau was a nearly point-a-game player with 776 points in 805 regular-season and playoff games. His 743 regular-season points rank in the top 30 of all U.S.-born players. Gaudreau also owns the men’s world championship records by a U.S. player with 30 assists and 43 points.
Two years ago, Gaudreau left Calgary to sign a seven-year contract worth nearly $69 million with the Blue Jackets that put him and his young family in Ohio, closer to home in New Jersey.
Burke remembered something else about his former player too: A willingness to go beyond the game.
“First and foremost, Johnny was always the first to raise his hand to give back to his community. When we had any charity requests, we always knew he would say yes, without hesitation,” he said. “His love of his family, friends and alma mater was always apparent and was clearly the driving force in his life.”
Family members always called him John, with the “Johnny Hockey” nickname coming from his days at BC. They trademarked it only so they would have some say over how it was used.
“We’ll never, ever make a penny with it,” Guy Gaudreau told the Courier-Post in South Jersey in 2015. “We’re not looking to make a penny with it. We just don’t want it to be abused. If it comes to the point where ‘Johnny Hockey’ becomes really popular, like if cancer people want to do fundraisers, we’ll let them do all the fundraising they want with it and they can have all the money.”
In the same interview before Gloucester Catholic High School retired Gaudreau’s number, Guy said his son “just wants to play hockey. If Calgary told him, ‘We’re not paying you this year,’ he’d say, ‘Well, can I still play hockey?’”
He and his brother took different paths in the sport they loved, with Johnny finding NHL stardom and Matthew playing in the minors with a stint in Sweden before retiring two years ago and going to serve as boys hockey coach at Gloucester Catholic. They were back together this week for sister Katie’s wedding. Matthew, 29, and his wife were reportedly expecting their first child.
Hours after the tragedy, Feaster’s thoughts were not about Gaudreau’s magnificent career but the loss of two sons, husbands and fathers far too soon.
“For me it isn’t about the hockey,” Feaster said. “It’s about the family. It’s about his mom and dad and his sisters and his children, his wife. That’s the tough part. It isn’t the hockey. It’s the human beings.”
