Unspeakable tragedy

 Maybe we never hear about this, if they aren't athletes of some renown. Maybe I'm not writing about it on a morning when I'd literally rather be writing about anything else.

But Johnny Gaudreau, 31, was a professional hockey star with the Columbus Blue Jackets of the National Hockey League.

And he and his younger brother Matthew, 29, were legends on the ice at Boston College before that.

And today they are both dead, run down by an alleged drunk, and we all know about it precisely because of the aforementioned. And I don't know if that says something about America, something about our shallowness or our fascination with shiny objects or the way the athletic arena has become a cultural touchstone all out of round with its place in a healthy society.

Then again, I could overthinking this. Wouldn't be the first time.

Maybe, upon further review, what happened to the Gaudreau brothers was so awful, so unspeakably tragic, it transcends the arena or culture or the superficiality of celebrity. Maybe it was just a simple human thing.

Simple: As in two brothers coming home to New Jersey to stand up with their sister at her wedding, and going off to ride bikes the day before the nuptials. And then having the bad luck to cross paths with a 43-year-old man in a Jeep Grand Cherokee who told the cops he was five or six beers into his day, and who swerved to pass another vehicle on the right that had moved over to clear the Gaudreaus on their bikes, and ...

Well. We know what came after the "and."

According to the police, the 43-year-old man failed a field sobriety test, and said he passed the other motorist on the right because he thought the other motorist was just trying to block him. As if this were NASCAR and he was, I don't know, Joey Logano or someone. As if the other guy was Denny Hamlin or someone, and he was just trying to take the air off Denny Hamlin's spoiler.

And now two brothers who loved their sister are dead.

And the 43-year-old man who's been charged with running them down allegedly got miffed when he was told he'd have to sit in jail until his court appearance next Thursday.

And I am all out of words. I am all out of words for all of it.