{"id":100069,"date":"2025-06-29T18:26:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T18:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/100069\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T18:26:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T18:26:10","slug":"emotional-tribute-to-johnny-hockey-as-meredith-gaudreau-announces-blue-jackets-1st-round-picks-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/100069\/","title":{"rendered":"Emotional tribute to ‘Johnny Hockey’ as Meredith Gaudreau announces Blue Jackets’ 1st-round picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Meredith Gaudreau announced the Columbus Blue Jackets\u2019 first-round picks in the NHL draft Friday night, 10 months after her husband, John, was killed along with his brother while riding bicycles on the eve of their sister’s wedding.<\/p>\n

Fans at the Peacock Theater chanted \u201cJohnny! Johnny!\u201d in honor of the late player nicknamed \u201cJohnny Hockey\u201d<\/a> and cheered Meredith as she spoke.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted to take this time to thank every single team and every single fan base for your support for my family this past season,\u201d Gaudreau said. \u201cIt\u2019s truly an honor to be here, and from the bottom of my heart, I thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaudreau then said the Blue Jackets with the 14th pick were taking Jackson Smith, who later called it a surreal experience. Smith on a video call with reporters added he was grateful to be part of the poignant scene.<\/p>\n

“It was incredible,” Smith said. \u201cJust to see the support in the stands, in the crowd, for the Gaudreau family, it was an incredible moment, so to be picked right after that felt even extra special for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaudreau returned not too long after to announce Russian goaltender Pyotr Andreyanov was the team’s choice at No. 20.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/NHL<\/a><\/p>\n

The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Meredith Gaudreau announced the Columbus Blue Jackets\u2019 first-round picks in the NHL draft Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[230,3311,5,471,3271,18696,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-100069","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","9":"tag-gaudreau","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-jackson-smith","12":"tag-johnny-hockey","13":"tag-meredith","14":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/114768064325779865","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}