Guy Gaudreau joins Flyers practice as a guest coach: ‘Hopefully, there’s some sort of healing in that’

Hockey is a sport played on a sheet of ice approximately an inch thick.

It is a fragile surface, chewed up by steel blades and temperamental to temperature, which sends a chill in the air that swirls around it. But there is also warmth to it when you step onto the ice, on the other side of the tempered glass. It feels like home, a safe place. Inside the glass, the outside world is blocked out. It feels protective.

And that thin ice surface, despite its frailty, can also be sturdy and hold up a community and family in mourning. It is why John Tortorella phoned Guy Gaudreau, 67, and asked him to help coach at the Flyers training camp.

“He’s a coach and he’s done some great work with some of the youth out here,” Tortorella said of the longtime South Jersey youth hockey coach at Hollydell Ice Arena in Sewell and Gloucester Catholic High School.

» READ MORE: Hollydell Ice Arena and the Philadelphia Rebels honor the Gaudreau brothers: ‘They meant everything to this community’

“I figured it’s perfect to get him in with us. He was hesitant at first, and we let him go at his timetable and I think it worked out really well today. I gave him my camp book, we’re going to check in next week and see if we can get him out here a couple more times and have him be part of it. I don’t want it to be, just come out here, I want him to be part of it. I think it will be therapeutic for him to be around us and run some drills.”

Tortorella did not know Guy Gaudreau; they first met Monday in Voorhees. And he had never met his sons, Johnny and Matthew, who grew up plying their trade 10 miles south of the Flyers Training Center under the watchful eye of their proud father.

Johnny, 31, became an NHL star by proving doubters, who questioned his diminutive 5-foot-9 frame, wrong at every turn. Matthew, 29, played in the minors, including a stint with the Flyers’ ECHL affiliate, the Reading Royals, and later coached at Gloucester Catholic, the brother’s alma mater.

Tortorella should have been able to meet them. They should not be gone. But on Aug. 29, on the eve of what was scheduled to be their younger sister’s wedding, while on an evening bike ride in Oldmans Township in Salem County, the brothers were fatally struck and killed by an alleged drunk driver. Johnny left behind two young children; his wife Meredith, and Matthew’s wife Madeline, are each pregnant.

“It’s so tragic what happened, and it just breaks your heart,” defenseman Nick Seeler said. “To have Mr. Gaudreau out here, and having him around the players, and he’s a coach himself, so just to have him around the guys and the coaching environment, hopefully, there’s some sort of healing in that.”

Aside from his mop of curly black hair, a maroon Frozen Four shirt — the color of Boston College, where the brothers played hockey — and the same blue and red Warrior gloves with the name “Gaudreau” stitched on the cuff that Johnny wore with the Columbus Blue Jackets, which grasped a stick equally similar to his son’s CCM JetSpeed stick, Guy Gaudreau blended in among the Flyers coaches.

Decked out in the same orange and black tracksuit, he chatted with assistant coaches Darryl Williams and Angelo Ricci as the non-game groups practiced. He had a laugh or two with veteran winger Garnet Hathaway, who played with Johnny Gaudreau on the Calgary Flames. He banged his stick on the boards, and showed that he is a players coach.

“He was giving me [expletive] that I was yelling at the players to skate harder,” Tortorella said. “He said, ‘You only got three lines out here, how much harder can they go?’ So he’s paying attention. It was good. A few people came into the coach’s room, a lot of people know him in the organization because of his reputation and being out here, and the family. It was good and I hope we can keep doing it.”

» READ MORE: Johnny and Matty Gaudreau were more than hockey. They were inspirations to their South Jersey community.

“That was cool to have him out there,” defenseman Travis Sanheim said. “I think any way that we can help him out with what’s going on. I hope this was good for him as well. He’s done a lot for this area and this community. It was fun to have him.”

Tortorella wanted Gaudreau to join the team for its trip to Montreal on Monday to take on the Canadiens but he declined. There should be other chances. The Flyers bench boss wants his fellow coach to come back — often. And next time, he wants him to come prepared.

“I asked him today if he had a drill and he said, ‘You know what, let me move some pucks today’ and maybe it progresses into that,” Tortorella said. “He’s developed some really good people out here in this area as far as players. I don’t want it to be an everyday story, we just want to help. And to be in a locker room, coach to coach, player to coach, and guys talking to him, I just hope it helps him a little bit.”

The Flyers play the Canadiens at 7 p.m. The game is expected to be streamed on the Flyers website. ... Olle Lycksell and Bobby Brink are the only players who skated Sunday in Washington who will make the trip north of the border. ... Former Flyers defenseman Tony DeAngelo, a native of Sewell, signed a contract to play next season in Russia with SKA St. Petersburg. Matvei Michkov previously played for SKA.

» READ MORE: The Flyers beat the Capitals, 6-2, in the preseason opener. How did Matvei Michkov do?