PHILADELPHIA — Jack Gard took off down the stairs to his bedroom at the family home in Winnipeg, Canada, on June 28. Seconds before, the Gard family watched on television as his younger brother, Matthew, was drafted in the second round, 57th overall.

Already wearing his own, he returned with the perfect thing for the moment: a Flyers jersey.

“Matthew’s got two older brothers and a younger brother [Graham]. So his twin brothers, Jack and Luke, when they were young, we didn’t have the Jets back in Winnipeg yet, so their teams became Philadelphia and Pittsburgh,” Jayson Gard, their father, told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

“So, of course, Jack was elated when Matthew got picked [by the Flyers], and, of course, Luke wasn’t very happy.”

It was emotional on many levels for the Gards, who were given the option to go to Los Angeles for the draft by Matthew’s agency, Wasserman, but he chose to stay home because one of his brothers had to work. And, although he wasn’t among the fanfare that comes with being at the Peacock Theater, he still had a chance to throw on an orange and black sweater immediately, with his proud father putting Gard and the No. 25 (for the draft year) on the back shortly after.

“I think all of them are just super proud of me,” Matthew said. “And, yeah, it was a dream come true for all of us.”

Running down a dream

Skating alongside fellow Flyers draft pick, Luke Vlooswyk, Matthew potted 36 points (19 goals, 17 assists) in 66 games for Red Deer of the Western Hockey League last season. A few weeks after their season ended without a playoff appearance, he represented Canada at the 2025 U-18 Men’s World Championship, collecting a goal and four points in seven games for the gold-medal squad.

But the ice isn’t the only place Matthew has donned the maple leaf. The forward switched to the blue line for Canada Ball Hockey’s Team West at the 2023 International Street and Ball Hockey Federation’s U-16 Men’s World Championship. Playing in sneakers instead of skates, and corralling a bouncing orange ball instead of a puck, on a blue dek, he had a goal and five points across five games in Liberec, Czechia. The team won silver, losing in overtime to the host country in front of a packed Home Credit Arena, home of the Czech Extraliga’s Bílí Tygři Liberec.

“I think it definitely helps your hand-eye [coordination], because ball hockey, it’s a different feel, for sure,” Matthew said. “So you’ve got to pick balls out of the air, and running with the ball is quite challenging, actually.”

They might be giants

Several elements of Matthew’s game sparked the interest of the Flyers. According to Flyers amateur scout Mark Greig, he is “rangy, skates well, like the hockey IQ on both sides of the puck with a fine compete level, and although he is a center, he can be versatile and play wing, too.”

But that is burying the obvious lead.

The Flyers wanted to get bigger, and standing next to Matthew and his father, it’s clear why the organization tapped the 18-year-old. The two tower over everyone, with Matthew at 6-foot-5, and Jayson at 6-6. His mother, Sherry, is 5-11.

And, like Matthew, his parents have an affinity for Canada’s national teams. The sport? No shock here, volleyball.

Although he prefers the sun and sand of beach volleyball in the summer to the indoor court, Matthew played one of the two family sports — his older brothers, Jack and Luke, also played volleyball at the University of Winnipeg — until he hit Grade 8, when he opted to focus solely on hockey. Matthew was a power forward like his mother, who is now an anesthesiologist, and Jayson, who played pro in Italy and the Netherlands, was a middle hitter.

And like ball hockey, volleyball has only helped the Flyers prospect’s game.

“I think all the volleyball players have a ton of explosiveness in their legs, and I think that transfers over to hockey pretty well,” he said.

What tomorrow brings

But hockey was always Matthew’s first love.

“When he was 2, we have a cottage and the lake freezes, and I would put a rink on for his older brothers,” recalled Jayson, before watching his son take on the New York Rangers rookies in Allentown, Pa.

“And the first time I brought him out there, I had him between my legs and holding his arms. We did that about a lap, and he looked back at me, and he said, ‘I’m good, Dad.’ ... And then that was it, he never looked back.”

According to Jayson, his boys, including the youngest, Graham, who will play for Lethbridge of the WHL next season, spent hours skating on outdoor rinks and frozen ponds in the province — despite the temperature ranging between minus-13 and minus-22 Fahrenheit.

It’s where Matthew developed a toughness to his game; that, and “of course, in a household with four boys, there’s a lot of physicality that goes on there, maybe sometimes not to mum’s liking,” his dad attests.

The Manitoban has shown his physicality and skill when skating first at development camp in early July, then rookie camp a few weeks ago, and now the NHL camp. Originally in Group C, when Flyers training camp began on Thursday, an injury to Karsen Dorwart moved the Flyers’ 2025 second-round pick into Group B and alongside NHLers like Bobby Brink, Owen Tippett and Noah Cates.

On Saturday, Matthew saw himself centering a line between Samu Tuomaala and Anthony Richard during the scrimmage in front of a packed house. He won faceoffs, made smart plays on coverage, and forechecked. Halfway through the five-on-five play, he chipped the puck to Richard before Tuomaala had a scoring chance in tight, and with under 5 minutes to go, he stole the puck, streaked down the left side, and almost connected on a cross-crease pass to Tuomaala; Trevor Zegras broke it up at the last second.

“I love Matthew Gard. First of all, he’s a Western League boy, so you can’t have enough of those guys,” director of player development Riley Armstrong, who hails from Saskatchewan, said last Monday during rookie camp. “...I thought his skating from development camp to now, improved. The pace of his game was right there through the whole entire two games [in the rookie series].

“And, I think he’s going to be a surprise to a lot of people here in the next couple of years.”

Armstrong is excited for Matthew to go to Red Deer and be “the man,” playing at all strengths and building on his confidence. Matthew is ready for a leadership role as he works on improving his pace.

And for his family, it all began as they sat together watching on TV.

“It was a phenomenal moment,” Jayson said. “He’s been dreaming about this since he was a kid, and to hear his name called to the Philadelphia Flyers was just a fantastic moment for the whole family.”

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