Canadian clothing company creates line in honour of Humboldt Broncos

Regina apparel company 22Fresh is unveiling a new collaboration with the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League in the name of the Humboldt Broncos.

On the Monday following the crash, the Junior 'A' hockey league, along with the store chain Federated Co-op, established the SJHL Assistance Program to provide mental health assistance and counselling to all players and their families.

The league reached out to 22Fresh president Kip Simon to ask if the company could design and distribute a collection to show support and raise funds for the program.

"We've had a lot of requests for apparel from all over North America," said SJHL President Bill Chow. 

"We're trying to meet requests that we didn't know were going to come. We're trying to think about things that we didn't know we were going to have to think about and do things as best as we can."

We've got people working around the clock on it.- 22Fresh president Kip Simon

The collection will be sold through the 22Fresh website, it's store The Locker Room, and about 150 Co-op locations. All of the proceeds will go to the SJHL program.

Simon said right after he got off the phone with the league, a representative for 22Fresh's manufacturer in the U.S. called to say he could rally his team if anything was needed. It has dedicated about 100 staff members to filling the purchase order of about 12,000 T-shirts.

"We've got people working around the clock on it," Simon said.

"Our phone has literally been ringing nonstop," he continued. "We can't even physically keep up with responding to emails and direct messages on social platforms. The response has been very overwhelming and we're very excited to get the product."

The first set of apparel will be released by the end of next week with about 700 pieces up for grabs. Simon anticipates their stock to be depleted within an hour.

Over 10,000 more will come in the next shipment, but the company has already had order requests from all over Canada, the U.S. and multiple countries in Europe.

Simon said 22Fresh is working on its website's capacity so the team will be able to fulfil requests.

"To all these people that were affected at any level … there's an entire province that has their back and they're willing to do whatever it takes. And in our case, we have 10 years of experience in design, manufacturing and distributing product and if that's what we can do to help, that's what we're going to do," Simon said.

The design was created to be printed on T-shirts, hoodies and hats. Those who want to support the cause can sign-up for the company's newsletter to be alerted when Humboldt Broncos products are available.