The Gaudreau household is reflecting on their time attending the 2026 Winter Olympics a couple of 12 months after Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau had been tragically killed.
“After we had been first invited to Milan for the Olympics, we mentioned no. It felt like greater than we might deal with,” the Gaudreau household wrote in a press release to X on Saturday, February 28. “However we stored fascinated about what John and Matty would say in the event that they knew we turned it down. We knew the reply. John cherished representing his nation. From the time he was little, he dreamed of competing on the Olympics. In that remaining summer time, he was working more durable than ever, pushing himself with the whole lot he needed to earn a spot on that roster. He was going to be there.”
He continued, “Sitting with that data whereas watching these Video games was not straightforward — however being current for them, surrounded by individuals who actually cared about John and Matty, made it one thing we are going to at all times treasure. Each individual we encountered took the time to ask concerning the boys — who they had been, what they meant to us, the type of folks they had been away from the ice.”
Information broke in 2024 that Matthew and Johnny — a ahead for the Columbus Blue Jackets and a favourite for the 2026 Olympic hockey workforce — died at age 29 and 31, respectively. The brothers had been driving their bikes the day earlier than sister Katie Gaudreau’s marriage ceremony in New Jersey once they had been struck and killed by an alleged drunk driver.
The Group USA males’s hockey workforce felt Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau’s spirits once they took house the gold on the 2026 Winter Olympics. “Johnny and Matty must be right here and that’s nonetheless the most important loss that every one of us at USA hockey, their households (and) our household, has gone by way of,” Dylan Larkin informed reporters (…)
Final month, Johnny and Matthew’s dad and mom, Jane and Man Gaudreauattended the 2026 Winter Olympics the place workforce USA’s males’s and girls’s hockey groups each took house the gold. After the lads’s workforce gained their first gold in additional than 40 years, gamers had been seen holding up a jersey for Johnny earlier than his youngsters had been introduced onto the ice to have a good time. (Johnny shared Noa, 3, and Johnny Jr., 2, with spouse Meredith. She gave delivery to the couple’s third childson Carter, in 2025.)
The message on Saturday famous that the household was “struck” most by realizing that John and Matty’s “impression reaches a lot additional than (they) generally see in (their) personal grief.”
“They’re carried by so many individuals — in locker rooms, in conversations, in quiet moments we are going to by no means even learn about. Meaning the whole lot to us. After which Group USA gained gold,” the assertion learn. “When Zach (Werenski), Auston (Matthews), and Matthew (Tkachuk) carried John’s jersey round that ice, we had been overwhelmed — they made certain he was there.”
The assertion continued, “After which to see Noa and Johnny — on Johnny’s second birthday — carried out onto the ice to be a part of that gold medal picture — there aren’t any phrases for what that felt like. John and Matty ought to have been there, and in that second, they had been.”
The household went on to thank “each member of that workforce for loving John & Matty,” and for “ensuring they had been a part of one thing historic.”
“And thanks to everybody at @NBCOlympics and @usahockey in your kindness, your generosity, and for bringing our household to Milan to witness it. You gave us a present we didn’t know we wanted,” the assertion concluded.
The message was signed, “With love and gratitude, The Gaudreau Household.”