'Never goes away': Boulet family remembers, honours son 5 years after Humboldt crash

Logan Boulet's father, Toby, says it still feels like yesterday that his family got the call about the tragedy.

LETHBRIDGE -

The hockey rink was one of Logan Boulet's favourite places to be.

On April 6, 2018, the Humboldt Broncos hockey team was on its way to a playoff game when a semi-truck sped through a stop sign in rural Saskatchewan and hit the bus.

Logan, along with 15 others, died and 13 people were seriously injured.

His father, Toby, says it still feels like yesterday that his family got the call about the tragedy.

"Five years have gone through and you are constantly moving forward (but) you're not moving on. You're moving forward but it's still there," Toby said.

Toby and Logan's mother, Bernadine, are still coming to terms with their son's death.

"We celebrate Logan," Toby said.

"We talk about Logan. We hang out with people who let us say Logan's name. If we want to cry, they don't say anything – they don't say we have to stop talking, we don't want to bring it up. Those kind of people, we don't want to hang out with because that's not what we were like before and not what we're like now."

Logan signed his donor card – an action that saved six lives.

From that selfless act, the Logan Boulet Effect was born.

"Logan was a very kind and generous person," Toby said.

"Everybody thinks that, and he was nice, genuinely nice. Can he be mean on the rugby field or hockey rink? Yeah, he could do what needed to be done, but he was a nice person."

The Boulets have shared their message with the younger generation in schools throughout Lethbridge.

While they continue to grieve, Toby says the tragedy has taught his family to live their lives to the fullest each and every day.

"If it's not that important, it's not that important. If you have to wait in line for five more minutes because there's a train there, you got to sit and wait, like whoop-de-doo," Toby said.

"Nothing is that important. We've lost our son."

With support from other families and the community, the Boulets say they've been able to move forward and Logan will always be with them.

"It just never goes away. It just softens around the edges and you never really know what's going to make you cry or change your demeanour at that moment," Toby said.