Hockey brothers Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau will be buried at a suburban Philadelphia church on Monday while the drunk driver who allegedly killed them awaits his next court appearance.
A memorial service for the Gaudreau brothers will be held at St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church in Media, Pennsylvania, exactly one week after their tragic deaths.
The funeral will be held only among family and friends, but the NHL's Columbus Blue Jackets, the team Johnny Gaudreau played for, announced they would stream the funeral on their website.
Johnny Gaudreau, 31, and Matthew Gaudreau, 29, were killed on August 29 while riding their bicycles on a rural road in their hometown of New Jersey when they were hit by suspected drunk driver, Shawn Higgins.
They had been scheduled to serve as groomsmen at their sister's wedding the following day, but the event was suddenly called off by grieving family members.
Higgins, 43, appeared virtually for his first pretrial hearing in New Jersey on Thursday. But just seconds after it began, a judge postponed the hearing to determine Higgins' pretrial conditions until Sept. 13 to give his lawyers more time to prepare.
During his first online appearance on August 30, it was notable that he was not wearing the suicide vest he was wearing.
Higgins is charged with reckless driving, possession of an open container and having alcohol in a vehicle, as well as two counts of causing death by motor vehicle.
The Gaudreau brothers grew up in Carneys Point Township in southern New Jersey and played hockey at Gloucester Catholic High School before attending Boston University.
Johnny, known in the NHL as “Johnny Hockey,” was a beloved member of the Columbus Blue Jackets, and his brother played professionally for several years before coaching the Gloucester Catholic hockey team that was killed off.
Tributes to the couple poured in from across North America.
Fans and current and former NHL players held candlelight vigils in Columbus, Ohio, and Calgary, Alberta, on Wednesday night to remember their brothers.
A 13-minute, 21-second moment of silence was held outside the Blue Jackets' arena in downtown Columbus, followed by a slideshow of photos of the brothers' fondest moments from childhood through adulthood, with the minutes representing the brothers' hockey jersey numbers.
In New Jersey, mourning fans erected a hockey stick-shaped memorial on the side of the road.
Similar “stickers” have been erected in homes across the United States and Canada.
“As we begin the journey to bury John and Mattie, we take great comfort from all those who have visited these growing memorials and left messages of love, prayers and sympathy, as well as jerseys, skates, sticks, pucks, flowers, candles and many other memorial items,” the Gaudreau family said in a statement this week.
An obituary posted Thursday said donations could be made to Gross at Sports Professional Management in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and sent to the John and Matthew Gaudreau Foundation.
“This will never be a breakup post because I will never stop calling you by name and honoring you,” bride-to-be Katie Gaudreau wrote in a heartbreaking social media post. “I will take the best possible care of Mommy, Daddy, Kristen, Mar, Madeline and all of you babies.”
With post wire
