Reusse: News of NHL star Johnny Gaudreau’s death hits home for BC teammate Michael Sit

Michael Sit from Edina and Danny Linell from Great Neck, N.Y., were incoming freshmen for the Boston College hockey team in the late summer of 2011. They were assigned a 300-square-foot room in a dormitory that was intended to be a tight squeeze for two people.

Then, two or three weeks before it was time to move in, a player of small size and big reputation — Johnny Gaudreau from Crown’s Point in south New Jersey — changed his commitment to a Boston area school from Northeastern to Boston College.

“We found ourselves in a 300-foot ‘triple’ rather than a double,” Sit said Tuesday. “That was our home for the freshman year.”

Sit smiled and said: “[Coach] Jerry York must have figured to make that little space work for somebody, Johnny was a good choice.”

That’s because Gaudreau weighed “150 pounds soaking wet,” Sit said, and he also was very used to operating successfully in small spaces on his way to scoring goals.

“We knew about him before he got here, because of the way Johnny had torn up the USHL,” Sit said.

That would have been for the champion Dubuque Fighting Saints in the 2010-11 juniors season, when Gaudreau had 41 goals (regular season and playoffs) as a 17-year-old.

You could suggest that Gaudreau was loading up an already-loaded lineup at Boston College. The Eagles had future long-term NHLers Chris Kreider, Brian Dumoulin and Kevin Hayes, along with Barry Almeida, a major scoring threat.

The Gophers found out how good the Eagles were in the 2012 national semifinals. BC eliminated Don Lucia’s club with a 6-1 blowout in Tampa, Fla. Two nights later, BC defeated Ferris State, 4-1 — the Eagles’ fifth and most-recent national title, with a highlight goal from Gaudreau that is still talked about among Boston hockey fans.

That has been particularly true since the early hours of Aug. 30, when word started to spread that Johnny and brother Matt, two years younger, had been killed the previous evening while bicycling on a rural highway not far from where they grew up in New Jersey.

The driver was alleged to be drunk and passing on the inside. The original charge against him is “death by auto.”

The brothers were there to participate in their sister Katie’s wedding over that weekend.

“Katie is a great person, just like the entire family,” Sit said. “They had a place down there near Delaware and the water. We would go down there a couple of times during the summer for country concerts, and everyone would hang out in that big living room with Guy and Jane, their parents.”

All the Gaudreaus were scheduled to be in the Twin Cities this weekend for another wedding: Sit and Mara Wangen this Saturday in Minneapolis. Johnny was going to be one of 11 groomsmen — including hockey players from Edina High and BC, and other friends.

“I haven’t had a chance to talk to Guy and Jane yet,” Sit said. “It has to be so hard.”

Sit met soon-to-be-bride Mara on the same day he met Johnny: orientation day for Boston College freshman in 2011.

Mara was a graduate of Visitation School in Mendota Heights. That was a conversation starter and they have been together for a long time. Michael has a master’s from Northwestern, he works in downtown Minneapolis for the family business, Sit Investment Associates, and they have a beautiful new home on a bay in Deephaven.

Finally, pleased parents are getting a wedding after this long relationship, but including a few tears for Johnny and Matt, no doubt.

Me: “How long did it take to get out of the coma when you heard about the tragedy in New Jersey?”

Sit: “I’m not sure that I’m out of it yet.”

Gaudreau had 763 points in 10 regular seasons since moving into the lineup of the Calgary Flames in 2014. He surprised people by signing a free agent contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2022 — and even more so with his frequent comments about how much he enjoyed being in what’s largely an obscure NHL city.

“He really did love it there,” Sit said. “My sister Rachel lives in Columbus, three blocks down the street from the Gaudreaus. She’s in her last year of veterinary school there. Rachel would go to hockey games and Johnny would give her a ride home. Those two little kids, Meredith … a great family.”

Sit played three seasons at BC with Gaudreau, as a checking forward in awe of what he saw on the ice from that smallish man who had made those 300 square feet so crowded in Year One.

“He came in and it was just like Johnny was playing a different game than anyone else,” Sit said. “He was out there playing pond hockey, just having fun.

“He could have left for the NHL after his sophomore year. He stayed one more year. We liked to believe he stayed for us, the guys who started at BC with him, but Matty was coming in as a freshman. I know he stayed for the chance to play with Matty.

“Johnny is a special guy and one of my best friends in the world. He’s just one of those people that makes every room he walks into better.

“We were sad he was going to leave after his junior year, but we got the next best thing — his brother. Matty’s personality was different, but his spirit was the same.”