Meredith and Madeleine Gaudreau, the wives of NHL star Johnny Gaudreau and his brother, Matthew, brought mourners to tears Monday afternoon with heartbreaking personal reminiscences of the two as humble, inseparable buddies from small-town New Jersey, during an emotional two-hour joint funeral service packed with hundreds of lifelong friends, family members, teammates, other players and league executives.
“The bond that Matt and John shared is something that, unless you knew them personally, even the most perfect words, pictures or videos cannot adequately describe it,” said Madeleine, who was married to Matthew for three years. “They were attached at the hip, they slept in the same room up until college, and neither of them ever wanted that to change.”
“God really did draft the best two boys,” she added. “Linemates forever.”
Meredith spoke for more than 30 minutes about Johnny, revealing toward the end that she was pregnant with their third child.
“He didn’t have a bad bone in his body,” she said. “He never spoke badly about anyone. The most humble person I’ve ever met. Zero ego, quiet, sweet and shy. He was everything and more than I only dreamed about finding in a husband. And then he made all my dreams come true.”
The service was held at St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church in Media, Pennsylvania, about a half-hour’s drive from the rural road in southern New Jersey where Johnny, 31, and Matthew, 29, were killed by a suspected drunk driver 11 days ago while cycling near their family home.
During the homily, Fr. Tony Penna, the director of Boston College’s campus ministry who oversaw the service, recalled seeing the brothers at the end of a weekend when Matthew had been visiting Johnny while he was at school there. As the pastor approached, he overheard the two bantering in what he described as a verbal tennis match. “This is what they were doing: ‘I love you.’ ‘No, I love you.’ They must have said it 19 times, and I’m sitting there, going, Oh, what’s going on here? ‘I love you.’ ‘And I love you.’ ‘I don’t wanna’ go.’ ‘Ok, stay with me.’ ‘No, I have to go.’ ‘Ok, go.’ That was the conversation. But I saw in those two brothers a love that I don’t have with my own brothers – and I love my brothers, but they had an intensity to their love that was unbelievable.”
Meredith went on to recall Johnny’s impressively relaxed nature, which she joked was “sometimes too laid back. Most of his pregame interviews, you can find him wearing my clothes, my slippers, my hat that had my family’s dog embroidered on it. First, the nice clothes I would buy him specifically for the limelight, he couldn’t care less.”
“He would wake up early with the kids even on busy game days to help me. Some mornings I would try to get him to change before going to the rink for an interview, because he was covered in spit-up. But he would just say no, I like it there. He was proud of it. And off he went.”
The men were killed while cycling on the evening before the wedding of their younger sister, Kaitlyn, which had been scheduled for Friday, Aug. 30. Sean Higgins, 43, who was charged in their deaths, remains in jail as he awaits the next hearing in his case.
Closing her eulogy, Madeleine pleaded with people to never drink and drive. “Call a ride,” she said through tears. “Please do not put another family through this torture.”
