His busiest stretch, Bourgeault said, comes at the start of hockey season, when goaltenders across leagues are all preparing new equipment at the same time.
“It gets really crazy around the beginning of hockey season,” he said. “Everyone needs it for the same exact day.”
That demand once pushed Bourgeault into months of near-constant work.
“I worked here four months without taking a day off,” he said. “I was working 14 and 15-hour days without a day off.”
Another mask designed by Jordon Bourgeault for Jacob Markstrom in 2022. (Calgary Flames/X)
Bourgeault said his path into goalie mask painting began while working in industrial and automotive painting. Although he had drawn when he was younger, it was learning to use an airbrush that shifted his work toward custom art.
“I worked at a job where I was doing more industrial painting or automotive painting,” he said. “Everyone there was, ‘Oh, you should get an airbrush.’”
From there, the transition into goalie masks happened quickly, particularly in Canada’s hockey-heavy culture.
“As soon as I was half decent, anybody who was a goalie was like, ‘Oh, you should paint my goalie mask,’” Bourgeault said.
Today, Bourgeault said much of his creative process begins digitally, a process currently highlighted in the ads airing during the World Juniors. He sketches concepts on an iPad and sends digital versions to goalies before any paint is applied.
“I’ll do a drawing for them. I do it on my iPad, and then I can just send them a digital version of it,” he said.
Listen to Jordan Bourgeault talk about his work on The Green Zone: