Johnny Gaudreau's Unspoken Thirteen

The plan for the home opener was a moment of silence.

October 12, 2024, the Flyers in town, the first night of a new season at the Saddledome. What the building did instead was applaud. Then it started chanting his name, and it kept at it.

Johnny. Johnny. Johnny.

Two years ago tonight, Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matthew were killed while riding bicycles in New Jersey. Johnny was 31. Matthew was 29. There is a court case, still without a trial date, and this is not the night for it. What follows is only the Calgary part, because the Calgary part is the part this city actually owns.

The stairs

It began before the season did. In the days after, people came down to the Scotiabank Saddledome and gathered on the west stairs, and the number 13 was put up on the front of the building where anybody driving past could see it. Sweaters on the steps. Flowers. Sticks leaned against the concrete.

Nobody organizes that. It just happens, or it does not, and here it happened.

The record, briefly

He came to Calgary as a fourth-round pick, 104th overall in 2011, and stayed nine seasons.

Six hundred and two games. Two hundred and ten goals, 399 assists, 609 points, which is fifth in franchise history. One season, 2021-22, of 115 points. He was not big and he was never going to be, and it did not matter in the slightest.

The first of those games was April 13, 2014, the last night of a season that had nothing left in it. Calgary lost 5-1 in Vancouver. Gaudreau took one shot all night and scored on it.

Here is the thing about that date, and it turned up while we were checking something else entirely: it was also Peter Maher’s last broadcast. Thirty-three seasons behind the microphone, the man who called the only Cup this city has won, working his final Flames game. The kid’s first NHL goal went in on Maher’s last night in the booth. Nobody planned that either.

The leaving

He left in July 2022, and it was not a trade and it was not a fight. He went to free agency and signed in Columbus, and Brad Treliving stood in front of the cameras and called it a disappointing day, and said the club had done everything possible to keep John in Calgary.

Then he thanked him for eight great years.

That is a general manager losing a player, and at the time it was read that way, and people were angry about it in the way this city gets angry. It reads differently now.

The number

Since he left, no Calgary player has worn 13.

That is not a retirement. The Flames have not raised a banner, have not announced anything, and have never publicly said the number is out of circulation. Craig Conroy has not said it. Nobody at the club has. There are fans who would like them to, and there are columns arguing for it, and none of that is a club decision.

All that is true is the plain fact: four seasons have gone by, hundreds of sweaters have been handed out in that room, and none of them had a 13 on the back.

Maybe that means something. Maybe it is a quiet thing a quiet organization does without wanting to be asked about it. Maybe one day a kid gets handed it and that will be fine too, because numbers are for wearing.

But two years on, it is still hanging there, unspoken for.

Johnny. Johnny. Johnny.