Gaudreau brothers mourned at tearful funeral

MEDIA, Pa. — John and Matthew Gaudreau had been remembered as loving brothers and husbands who put household above hockey and every thing else at their tearful funeral Monday, per week and a half after they died after they had been struck by a suspected drunken driver whereas driving bicycles of their dwelling state of New Jersey.

Widows Meredith and Madeline Gaudreau described their husbands as hooked up on the hip all through their lives. John was 31 and Matthew 29.

“The whole lot was at all times John and Matty,” stated Meredith, John’s spouse, who revealed she was pregnant with the couple’s third baby. “I do know John wouldn’t have been in a position to reside a day with out his brother.”

Buses introduced gamers and others to St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church and a crowd of tons of walked in for the service, together with a number of youngsters in Gaudreau No. 13 jerseys worn by the NHL participant identified to followers as “Johnny Hockey.” Columbus Blue Jackets teammate Patrik Laine, Cole Caufield of the Montreal Canadiens, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and longtime govt Brian Burke had been amongst these in attendance.

“It simply reveals the true honor and respect that everyone gave them. Simply cannot think about what they are going by way of,” stated Caufield, who will put on No. 13 in honor of John Gaudreau. “Simply the quantity of individuals which can be right here as we speak and yesterday, simply something we will do to assist.”

Meredith Gaudreau singled out two of John’s closest buddies, Sean Monahan and Kevin Hayes, in her eulogy of greater than half-hour.

“You helped form him into the person I fell in love with,” she stated. “He appeared as much as you each on and off the ice. You had been his brothers, which implies you might be my brothers, too.”

John, an All-Star for the Calgary Flames and Columbus Blue Jackets, and Matthew, who performed collegiate hockey alongside his brother at Boston School a decade in the past, died on the eve of their sister’s marriage ceremony.

The Rev. Tony Penna, the director of campus ministry at Boston School, requested these contained in the church to go searching at how many individuals made the journey to the Philadelphia suburbs to pay their respects, calling it a supply of consolation for folks Man and Jane.

“By the overwhelming presence and overwhelming variety of individuals right here as we speak, they’re sending a message to you loud and clear that John and Matthew’s lives mattered, that they had been seen on this earth, they had been liked on this earth and so they had been valued on this earth,” Penna stated. “This strong crowd needs you to know that they are right here to inform you, all of you, that they love you, too, and so they have your again and so they’re right here to assist you in our loss.”

The Gaudreau brothers had been biking on a highway in Oldmans Township at about 8 p.m. on Aug. 29 when a person driving an SUV in the identical route tried to go two different autos and struck them from behind, based on New Jersey State Police. They had been pronounced useless on the scene.

The motive force, who faces two counts of demise by auto, together with reckless driving, possession of an open container and consuming alcohol in a motorcar, has been jailed pending a listening to Friday.

“I urge everybody to not drink and drive,” stated Madeline Gaudreau, Matthew’s spouse. “Discover a experience. Please do not put one other household by way of this torture.”

A GoFundMe to assist Madeline, who’s pregnant with the couple’s first baby, has surpassed $645,000, with donations from almost 9,000 individuals pouring in, many from NHL gamers and their households.

John and Matthew have been mourned throughout the sports activities world, together with in Columbus, Ohio, the place Gaudreau signed a free agent deal in 2022 with the small-market Blue Jackets over extra profitable free agent gives from different groups, together with the New Jersey Devils. Followers and Blue Jackets gamers gathered final week for an emotional candlelight vigil, and an identical gathering was held in Calgary.

The brothers’ lives have been celebrated on social media since their deaths. Katie Gaudreau, the little sister who was speculated to get married the day after the brothers had been killed, posted photos of her household in happier occasions.

Over the weekend, it was an Instagram video captioned “Birds for the Gaudreau boys” over a clip of John Gaudreau opening his winter coat to flash an Eagles jersey as he went by way of safety forward of an NHL sport. She additionally posted a tribute to a household slideshow known as “That day” the place she wrote how she would “do something to inform my massive brothers I like them yet one more time.”