On the evening of August 29, 2024, John and Matthew Gaudreau, 31 and 29, went for a relaxing bike ride along a rural road near their childhood home in Oldmans Township, Salem County. They were in a happy mood; their sister was getting married the next day, and they would be groomsmen in the wedding.
Sean Higgins, who was hurtling down the road behind them in his Jeep Grand Cherokee, was less relaxed. The 43-year-old, who has since been charged with reckless vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a fatal accident, among other charges, told police he had been drinking beers while driving around for a couple of hours with no particular plan, impatiently passing cars. He admitted that’s what he was doing on County Road 551, a few miles from the Gaudreau family home, when he swung right around an SUV and hit “something harder than a deer.” The brothers were pronounced dead at the scene. Higgins’s trial has been paused while his lawyers challenge the admissibility of his statements after his arrest.
No matter who the two victims were, the accident would have been tragic. But some tragedies hit especially hard. Legions of hockey fans were shocked at the death of John, the seven-time NHL All-Star and fan favorite known as Johnny Hockey, of the Columbus Blue Jackets and, before that, the Calgary Flames. So were the students and staff at Gloucester Catholic High School, which both brothers had attended, and where Matthew, a former pro player himself, coached the hockey team.
From left: Matthew and John Gaudreau Photo: Courtesy of the Gaudreau family
The Gaudreau family—parents Guy and Jane and sisters Kristen and Katie—were beyond devastated. “My children were so close,” Jane says. “They vacationed together, they spent time at the Shore together whenever the boys came home. We did everything together. It was just a way of life.”
Guy, who managed the Hollydell Ice Arena in Sewell for three decades, was Matthew and John’s only coach until they started traveling to play junior hockey. When the brothers were standouts at Boston College—John was voted best hockey player in the NCAA in 2014—the family would fly to watch them play, and the tradition continued when John was in Calgary, then Columbus.
The Gaudreau family at John Gaudreau’s wedding in 2021. Photo: Courtesy of the Gaudreau family
In March 2018, Guy had a heart attack while running a half-marathon. He recovered, but it inspired John to buy a beach house in Avalon so they could spend summers together. The family—including John’s wife, Meredith, and their two kids, and Matthew’s wife, Madeline—would gather at the house every summer weekend. “The minute the season was over, John would fly home,” says Jane. (Both wives have given birth, to their third and first children respectively, since their husbands’ deaths.)
While the family’s closeness made the loss of the brothers almost impossible to bear, it has also been a comfort. “The harder you love, the harder you grieve,” says Jane. “But at the same time, I do feel we were lucky, because even though we didn’t have that quantity of time to be with them forever, the quality of time we had with them was so high.”
The Gaudreau Brothers’ Wings of Hope and Chrysalis Corner Adaptive Playground at Archbishop Damiano School in Westville. Photo: Matt Stanley
While hockey was always important to the Gaudreaus, it wasn’t the only thing. The family has been dedicated to Archbishop Damiano School in Westville, the special-needs school that Jane’s disabled brother attended and where her mother worked for 44 years. Jane has been a finance associate there since college, and Kristen works in the speech department. When John and Matthew were at Gloucester Catholic, after the soccer and hockey seasons ended, Jane would pick them up after school and bring them to Archbishop Damiano to volunteer. While playing professionally, John seized every opportunity to help the school. When he won $10,000 for scoring a hat trick during an All-Star game, he donated it all to the school, Jane says. “I didn’t realize the magnitude of…the people they affected, and how widely it went,” Jane says. “That was a very helpful part of the healing process to Guy and I.”
For months after her boys were killed, Jane says, she could barely function. “It was a struggle just to get up, get out of bed and take a shower.”
Then, a family friend got the idea to host a 5K race in John and Matthew’s names to raise money for an adaptive playground at the school, a project dear to the family’s heart that had stalled for lack of funds. Though the Gaudreaus liked the idea, they weren’t in any shape to help. The friends plunged ahead anyway, hoping for about 100 runners. On race day, 1,100 showed up and about as many pledged online. “We raised over $500,000, more than enough to complete the entire playground,” says Jane.
From left: Matthew and John Gaudreau Photo: Courtesy of the Gaudreau family
In October 2025, friends and supporters put the playground together in a community build. The Gaudreau Brothers’ Wings of Hope and Chrysalis Corner Adaptive Playground is now being enjoyed by students. “People wanted to keep the boys’ legacy alive and knew this was important to our family,” says Jane.
What has also helped, she says, is the people who have reached out to tell her and Guy stories about John and Matthew, and how the brothers helped or inspired them. “We were always so proud of all four of our children, but to hear people say how they helped them, to tell us they had an impact, was quite healing for us,” Jane says. “It was almost like this one big warm hug wherever we went.”
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