Art celebrates ice sports and Logan Boulet legacy

By Lethbridge Herald on April 5, 2024.

Lethbridge artist Karla Mather-Cocks has turned the Zamboni at the Logan Boulet Arena into a piece of ice sports art honouring Boulet’s legacy which has led to thousands of organ donor registrations across Canada. Herald photo by Delon Shurtz

Delon Shurtz – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – dshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com

Zambonis normally don’t attract much attention as they go about their business cleaning the ice between periods of hockey and after a game. But the Zamboni in Lethbridge’s Logan Boulet Arena is sure to garner some well-deserved oohs and aahs the next time it’s on the ice.

The Zamboni has undergone an amazing transformation courtesy of Lethbridge artist Karla Mather-Cocks. Mather-Cocks turned the previously mundane looking vehicle into a one-of-a-kind piece of art, which doesn’t just look great, but honours the legacy of the hockey player after whom the ice arena is named.

The Zamboni is vinyl wrapped with 72 images copied from nine pictures depicting ice sports in the city, such as figure skating and hockey, including pictures of Logan Boulet who died April 7, 2018, the day after a horrific crash involving the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team.

“It’s kind of an honour to design something for a Zamboni, but really to have something that does create a legacy that weaves together the history of ice sports in Lethbridge, and of course Logan Boulet’s impact on our community and beyond,” Mather-Cocks said Thursday at the Logan Boulet Arena, where the public art installation, “Interwoven Legacies,” was unveiled.

Mather-Cocks’ art installation also includes the same images attached to the outside of the arena, where pictures of Boulet greet visitors as they arrive for hockey games and various ice-related activities.

“Thank you very much Karla for creating this,” Boulet’s mother, Bernadine, said at the unveiling. “We’re very honoured to have Logan be able to ride around on a Zamboni, ‘cause what little kid doesn’t have a dream of being able to ride the Zamboni and be part of that?” 

The unveiling comes three days before the community once again celebrates Green Shirt Day in honour of the “Logan Boulet Effect.”

Not long before he died, Boulet told his parents he wanted to be a donor in honour of his late former coach and mentor Ric Suggett who, as a donor himself, saved six lives after he died in 2017.

His family donated his organs, and in the weeks following, more than 150,000 Canadians registered to become organ donors, which is the largest number in Canada’s history from one event or person. Green Shirt Day was created to honour, remember, and recognize all the victims and families of the fatal crash and to continue Logan’s legacy by inspiring Canadians to talk to their families and register as organ donors.

It’s that rippling effect Mather-Cocks has recreated in her art by taking one image and turning it into eight, then repeating that process for the remaining eight images.

“Each of those little tiles shows the rippling effect of people in ice sports and how their impacts impact the community and beyond, and other individuals, but also Logan Boulet’s impact, and how it ripples through our community and way beyond,” Mather-Cocks said.