For Don Waddell, leading Blue Jackets through Johnny Gaudreau tragedy is an echo of the past

In the hours after the Columbus Blue Jackets announced that star forward Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matthew had been killed, team president and general manager Don Waddell said he received 500 or so text messages.

One hit him even harder than the rest. It was from Graham and LuAnn Snyder.

On Sept. 29, 2003, the Snyders’ son, Dan, was critically injured when a car driven by Atlanta Thrashers teammate Dany Heatley was involved in a single-vehicle crash. Snyder died six days later.

More than 20 years later, the family is still in touch with Waddell, who was the Thrashers’ GM at the time. The message they sent on Aug. 30, the morning after a car struck and killed the Gaudreau brothers, wished the organization strength and had a simple message to Waddell: that there was no doubt he could lead the organization through this tragedy, just as he did the Thrashers.

“I think it’s important in those moments that you feel some support or love from somewhere,” Graham Snyder told The Athletic. “Because the emotions are just so high.

“When I woke up and first heard the news and saw the headline and started reading … it took me about a minute and I said, ‘Oh, my God. It’s Don again.’ I knew he had moved to Columbus.

“I thought, ‘Oh jeez, Don, how are you going to get through this?’”

Once again, he must lead a grieving organization through so much pain. And yet also, at a time when hockey does not feel remotely important, he must somehow, someway, try to get it ready to play hockey again, too.

“Nobody wants that job, but he certainly helped us, and the organization did,” Graham Snyder said. “I just felt we had to reach out to him. Because who can think about going through that twice in your life?”

The message hit home.

“When Graham and LuAnn reached out to me that Friday, it meant the world to me,” Waddell told The Athletic. “Because the family went through it, losing one of their two sons, that’s never easy for anybody. How they dealt with it and how we’ve stayed in touch over the years, it just meant the world to me to hear from them knowing that as parents who went through it, (they) felt we handled it as well as we could of and supported them.

“They’re good people.”

Graham Snyder has vivid memories of speaking to Thrashers players after his son’s death in 2003 and wishing them the strength to carry on.

“I remember going into the Thrashers dressing room in Atlanta, and I don’t know, there was some strength that came from somewhere,” Snyder said. “Just a calm that came over me and I started talking to the team about what needed to happen and that we were there for them.”

As Snyder remembers it, the support from people around the sport was so important.

“One of the things that kind of got us through it, and it’s what is happening right now in Columbus and around the hockey world, people are really, really coming together,” Snyder said. “I think it’s like no other sport. The hockey world is so connected and so tight.

“That’s how they’ll get through it now, with the support from others in the hockey world.”

The Jackets have felt that.

“Yes, 100 percent,” Waddell said. “It’s pretty evident by all the players that came out to the funeral — a lot of players that played with him but also a lot of players that didn’t play with him. This has had an impact not just on the Blue Jackets but the whole National Hockey League. And for that matter, the whole country. I’ve heard from so many people that didn’t know the Gaudreau family but saw all the stories and just wanted to be supportive and ask what they could do to help out. It was touching.”

The idea now is to honor Johnny Gaudreau’s memory by playing for him.

“If it’s anything like it was in Atlanta, the emotions will carry them through for a while,” Snyder said.

Right now, the Jackets are surely still in a fog of pain and shock. But they need to find the strength to move on.

“We’re all devastated for the Gaudreau families,” Waddell said. “You don’t ever think that parents should be burying their kids. There isn’t a moment that goes by that you’re not thinking about the families.

“From a team standpoint, we know it’s going to be hard. But we also listened to (Johnny’s wife) Meredith when she talked at the church. She knows that Johnny wants the best for us. I know guys have talked about it, that he would want us to go out and do what we’re capable of doing and try to win as many hockey games as we can.”

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Getting the players as much help as they need is paramount.

“Everybody grieves and mourns differently,” Waddell said. “You don’t expect that people can get through this by themselves. The union (NHLPA) has been great. They’ve offered up multiple grief counselors.”

Waddell added that starting this week through Ohio Health, the Jackets also have people on-site who can speak with players.

It will be a difficult process in the days ahead.

“We have to try and figure out how to get through the healing process and continue to move forward,” Waddell said.

And as Waddell noted, the Blue Jackets just three years ago lost young goalie Matiss Kivlenieks to a tragic death as well, an event that still scars many in the organization.

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It’s no easy path here. But just the hope that somehow everyone will find the strength.

“This was a senseless and cruel way for people to lose their life,” Waddell said.

It is a tragedy that will forever be with so many affected. But somehow, through that, the Jackets will honor the spirit of a player beloved by teammates. And within that, they will want to continue to help a grieving Gaudreau family in any way possible.

The Snyders felt that from the Thrashers 21 years ago.

“They were so much behind us and supportive,” Snyder said. “It was truly amazing and truly touching.”

(Photo: Kirk Irwin / Getty Images)