On Green Shirt Day, April 7, 2025, we reprise the story of this year's logo design by Humboldt native Geoffrey Kehrig. Today is the day to have that all imporant talk with family about becoming an organ donor and truly becoming part of the Logan Boulet Effect.
Enjoy a reprint of our Green Shirt Day article below:
Several weeks ago, Green Shirt Day unveiled the 2025 logo for its fundraising attire, and it was an artist who grew up in Humboldt, Geoffrey Kehrig, whose design was selected.
The Prairie News Network caught up with the Humboldt raised teacher and graphic artist to talk about how this year’s design unfolded, and the connections made with the originators of Green Shirt Day, the Boulet Family of Lethbridge.
We talked to Geoffrey from his home in Port Coquitlam where he works at an elementary school of 140 students, the smallest one in the community. He wears a variety of hats including librarian, computer learning specialist, music teacher, concert director and student services in addition to his teaching duties.
With his rainbow of roles, one wonders at his ability to get involved in the Green Shirt Day fold. However, a combined love of art and hockey got Kehrig thinking about how he could contribute to an effort that has saved so many lives.
Green Shirt Day began the year following the tragic bus accident that took the lives of many members of the Humboldt Broncos’ family, including Logan Boulet. Logan had engaged in a talk with his parents, Toby and Bernadine, about becoming an organ donor. In the time that followed the crash, Logan’s organs saved six people, and the ripples of what’s become known as the Logan Boulet Effect have saved countless others.
Kehrig reminisces about his days in Humboldt and his earliest engagement with the sport and the integration with art.
“I always loved art from an early age, and I was always drawing hockey players,” Kehrig recalled. “I didn’t start playing hockey until I was around Grade 6, so I’d watch my friends at the rink, and I’d always be doodling the game.”
Moving into high school and the well-established art program at HCI, he graduated to painting and creating prints with hockey imagery. He admits that his hockey skill wouldn’t have led to a productive on-ice career, so he trekked to university and took a year of general arts. That led to his acceptance into a graphic design program in Edmonton and eventually a degree from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design.
After a 15-year career in design, Kehrig followed the lead of some of his friends and migrated to a new passion – education for youth.
“Becoming a teacher was a great transition. Initially I was a kindergarten teacher, and that’s easily the most creative and energetic environment I’ve ever worked in.”
Like every ex-patriot Humboldtian, the news of the bus crash created both an immediate and lasting impact, and Kehrig recalls those days and his subsequent experiences leading up to his involvement in Green Shirt Day.
“When the bus crash happened, it was quite overwhelming, and for a lot of people who had lived in Humboldt, it was very strange and emotional time for a lot of people who grew up there. It was difficult to tell other people, ‘Hey, I’m from here.’ I would process it by looking and reading things, and marking things for later. One of the things I marked was a Sports Illustrated feature on YouTube about Logan Boulet.”
He recalled a Boulet slapshot goal against Nipawin, ironically the destination on that fateful April 6, 2018. The imagined image inspired Kehrig to search for a real image or recording of a Boulet slapshot, with the idea to create a reproduction, much as he had done in his youth watching hockey in his hometown arena.
Kehrig uncovered an image captured by Nipawin photographer Richard Petersen. Kehrig connected the notion with the Terry Fox Run held annually at his school and the event-inspired t-shirts that his students help design. The teacher and designer couldn’t help but draw parallels between Fox and Boulet, a pair of athletes who gave selflessly for the ongoing benefit of others.
“We talk about what makes a good t-shirt. One of three strategies we used was a silhouette of Terry Fox as a starting point. I think of great sports images, like Nike’s ‘Just Do It,’ with Michael Jordan and the dynamic silhouette. I thought that would make a dynamic image – Logan taking a slapshot.”
That’s where the idea for the shirt emerged. The application for a hockey jersey led to Kehrig’s embedding the image within a circle, like a team crest that was somewhat referential to the current Humboldt Broncos jersey logo which is also encircled. The design was submitted, and given the community connection and backstory, the image was a hard lock for this year's Green Shirt Day logo.
Toby Boulet with Geoffrey Kehrig
Geoffrey met Toby and Bernadine Boulet for the first time at the launch of the campaign and this year’s edition of the shirt, and he says he’s grateful for the opportunity of being there.
“They said they loved the logo, but they also liked hearing people’s stories who are associated with design. They really liked my connection to Humboldt. I talked about how, when I grew up, the Humboldt Broncos really were the superstars of our town. They still have that standing with me as an elite club from a great town. They taught a lot about working together as a team and all the great things you learn from sport. They modelled a lot of that.”
Proceeds from the sale of the shirts and donations go to partners supporting organ donation in Canada. As importantly, wearing the green shirt invites important conversations about become an organ donor and spreading the message about the importance of the Logan Boulet Effect in giving many others a second chance at life. Green Shirt Day is April 7.