The Gaudreau family didn’t realize the impact attending the USA men’s hockey team’s last two games of the 2026 Olympics would have on them.
They thanked USA Hockey on Saturday for bringing them to Milan and honoring Johnny Gaudreau, who along with brother Matthew was killed by an alleged drunk driver in August 2024 on the eve of their sister Katie’s wedding.
Gaudreau’s parents, Jane and Guy, Johnny’s widow, Meredith, and their two oldest kids, daughter Noa and son Johnny Jr., made the trip to watch Team USA’s wins over Slovakia and Canada. The players brought Noa and Johnny Jr. on the ice for team photos after winning the gold medal.
“When we were first invited to Milan for the Olympics, we said no. It felt like more than we could handle,” the Gaudreau family wrote Saturday in a statement on X. “But we kept thinking about what John and Matty would say if they knew we turned it down. We knew the answer. John loved representing his country. From the time he was little, he dreamed of competing at the Olympics. In that final summer, he was working harder than ever, pushing himself with everything he had to earn a spot on that roster. He was going to be there. Sitting with that knowledge while watching these Games was not easy — but being present for them, surrounded by people who truly cared about John and Matty, made it something we will always treasure.
“Every person we encountered took the time to ask about the boys — who they were, what they meant to us, the kind of people they were away from the ice. What struck us most was realizing that John and Matty’s impact reaches so much further than we sometimes see in our own grief. They are carried by so many people — in locker rooms, in conversations, in quiet moments we will never even know about. That means everything to us. And then Team USA won gold. When Zach [Werenski], Auston [Matthews], and Matthew [Tkachuk] carried John’s jersey around that ice, we were overwhelmed — they made sure he was there. And then to see Noa and Johnny — on Johnny’s second birthday — carried out onto the ice to be part of that gold medal photo — there are no words for what that felt like.
“John and Matty should have been there, and in that moment, they were. Thank you to every member of that team for loving John & Matty – and for making sure they were part of something historic. And thank you to everyone at @NBCOlympics and @usahockey for your kindness, your generosity, and for bringing our family to Milan to witness it. You gave us a gift we didn’t know we needed.
“With love and gratitude, The Gaudreau Family.”
Johnny, a prolific NHL star with the Flames and Blue Jackets, was part of the USA team that won the World Junior Championships in 2013 and played in five senior-level world championships, which included winning bronze in 2018.