On Thursday, Guy Gaudreau stepped back onto the ice at Hollydell Ice Arena in South Jersey.

This time, the children around him were not Johnny and Matthew.

They were dozens of boys and girls, some as young as 3, many learning to skate for the first time.

On Sept. 17, the Gaudreau Family Foundation launched its first free learn-to-skate and learn-to-play hockey program, offering children ages 3 to 12 instruction, ice time and equipment at no cost. The program is expected to run for roughly 12 weeks, beginning with basic skating before introducing hockey skills.

But the detail that gives the program its deepest meaning is who is teaching them.

Guy — the father who helped introduce Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau to hockey when they were children — is leading the sessions himself.

Two years after losing both of his sons, he is back where much of their hockey story began, showing another generation how to find their balance on the ice.

And Guy says the work is helping him, too.

“It helps me out too,” he said during the program’s launch. “I’m involved. It keeps my mind off a lot of things that I don’t wanna think about.”

For a family whose name became inseparable from grief in 2024, the new program is not built around remembering the brothers by standing still.

It is built around doing what they loved.

Back at the Rink Where So Much Began

Johnny Gaudreau became one of the NHL’s most recognizable American players, while his younger brother Matthew also played professional hockey.

But long before either brother reached that level, there was Hollydell.

Guy spent decades at the South Jersey rink and has described it as a second home for the family.

“I spent 30 years here running the rink as hockey director,” he said this week, “and John and Matt pretty much lived here with me.”

That history makes the location of the new program especially significant.

This is not simply a memorial hockey clinic being held at a convenient facility.

It is taking place at the same rink where Johnny and Matthew spent formative years learning and playing the sport.

And now, children who never met them are arriving at that same ice for their own first lessons.

The foundation has said the program was created to make hockey accessible to families who might otherwise struggle with the cost of entering the sport.

All instruction, equipment and ice time are being provided free of charge. Sessions are scheduled on Thursdays from Sept. 17 through Dec. 10, according to promotional information released ahead of the launch.

The program is aimed at children in the surrounding South Jersey area, with families generally required to live within about 30 miles of Hollydell.

The goal is simple at first: teach them to skate.

Then comes hockey.

“Guy Came Up With the Idea”

The Gaudreau Family Foundation was created after Johnny and Matthew were killed on Aug. 29, 2024, while riding bicycles in Oldmans Township, New Jersey.

The brothers were struck by a vehicle on the eve of their sister Katie’s wedding.

Their deaths devastated their family and sent grief through the hockey world.

But the new program deliberately shifts the focus away from the crash itself.

Instead, the family asked what part of Johnny and Matthew’s lives could be carried forward.

“We wanted to go back to what was important to them,” their mother, Jane Gaudreau, said about the program.

Then she added one important detail:

“Guy came up with the idea.”

That makes the program more than a foundation initiative bearing the brothers’ names.

It is also a father returning to one of the things he shared most deeply with his sons.

Guy was there at the beginning of their hockey lives.

Now he is taking that same role with children whose own relationship with the sport may be starting on these Thursday sessions.

Hockey Without the Barrier of Cost

For many families, hockey is difficult to enter because of the expense.

Skates, helmets, protective equipment, sticks, rink fees and instruction can create a significant financial barrier before a child ever plays a game.

Guy has spoken about the difference between his own childhood and what many young families face now.

Growing up near the Canadian border in Vermont, he had easy access to outdoor rinks and remembered hockey as something almost everyone around him could try.

Children in South Jersey, he has said, do not always have that same opportunity.

The new program is designed to remove that obstacle.

Participants begin with a 12-session learn-to-skate course. After developing those basic skills, they can move into a learn-to-play program, with hockey instruction expected to follow.

At the first session Thursday, 38 children ages 3 to 12 took part, according to local reporting.

Some were stepping onto the ice for the first time.

That means Guy’s job now involves many of the same moments he would have seen decades earlier: children wobbling, falling, getting back up and slowly discovering how to move across the rink.

The setting is different.

The lesson is not.

A Program That Works Both Ways

For the parents who brought their children to Hollydell, the opportunity is practical.

Their kids get access to a sport that can be expensive and intimidating to enter.

For the Gaudreau family, it is something else.

Guy openly acknowledged that coaching these children gives him somewhere to direct his attention.

“If you get kids to fall in love with the game,” he said, “it works both ways.”

That may be the most important line from the launch.

The children are receiving something from Guy.

But Guy is also receiving something from them.

The program does not attempt to erase what happened to Johnny and Matthew or suggest that coaching another generation somehow fills that loss.

Guy himself did not frame it that way.

Instead, the sessions give him a familiar role to return to.

Coach.

Teacher.

The person standing nearby while a child learns how to skate.

Jane said she believes Johnny and Matthew would approve of what the family is doing.

“I think they’re up there watching us and love what we’re doing,” she said.

From Memory to Something Children Can Actually Use

There have been many public tributes to Johnny and Matthew since their deaths.

Jerseys have been raised. Teams have honored them. Hockey players and fans have carried their names into games and ceremonies.

The foundation’s new program is different because the tribute is tangible.

A child receives skates.

A child receives ice time.

A child receives instruction.

And the family hopes that child does not simply finish 12 weeks and disappear from the sport.

Guy said that is one of the challenges still ahead.

“We want to see them continue,” he said. “We don’t want them to fall in love with a sport and be done with it.”

He added that the foundation still has “a lot of work ahead” as it grows.

That turns the program from a one-day memorial event into something potentially much larger.

The question is no longer simply whether children can try hockey.

It is whether the foundation can create a path that allows them to stay in it.

What Comes Next

The learn-to-skate sessions are expected to continue through December, with the next stage designed to move participants toward hockey skills and organized play. The family has also said it hopes to expand the initiative as demand grows.

Whether the program eventually reaches more rinks, more communities or significantly more children is not yet clear.

For now, its meaning is contained in a much smaller scene.

A father who spent years teaching his own sons how to skate is once again standing on the ice.

Johnny and Matthew are not beside him.

But the lessons have not stopped.

This week, another group of children began learning the game from the same man who once taught it to them.