Detroit, MI
‘Overwhelmed’ family man Sergei Fedorov relishing celebrating Detroit Red Wings history
Sergei Fedorov & Nicklas Lidström on Red Wings careers: ‘Overwhelming’
Former Detroit Red Wings superstars Sergei Fedorov and Nicklas Lidström, Nov. 7, 2025 in Detroit.
Sergei Fedorov, cutting a trim, fit figure that makes him look like he could still suit up and play, tried to explain what it’s like for him to be in Detroit this weekend as part of a Red Wings celebration of franchise history.
“It’s tough, to be honest with you,” he said. “As soon as I landed, a lot of thoughts came, a lot of memories came, and it’s still overwhelming.
“I’m trying to control myself, but it’s great to see you guys. I follow Red Wings from Moscow from time to time.”
Fedorov, the dynamic, extraordinary talent the Wings plucked from the fourth round of the 1989 NHL draft, back when the Iron Curtain still hung like a figurative wall around the Soviet Union, was at Little Caesars Arena on Friday, Nov. 7, as part of the team’s centennial celebration fan fest. It was his second visit to the Wings’ new home; he spent his playing years, from 1990 to 2003, at Joe Louis Arena, where he played a crucial role in the Wings winning the Stanley Cup in 1997, 1998 and 2002.
He’ll be back again on Jan. 12, when the Wings retire his No. 91. Fedorov called it a tremendous honor.
“Thoughts are very simple,” he said. “I got lucky to play with the greatest players in the game, coaches, staff. And I cannot thank enough ownership that gave me a chance to send a plane to Portland, Oregon, to get me. Mr. Ilitch’s family did a great job. I’m glad we won. Finally, we won.”
Fedorov sat next to fellow 1989 draftee Nicklas Lidström in an interview with reporters Friday evening. The Wings asked the budding superstar defenseman from Sweden to stay home from the draft so as not to tip off any teams, enabling them to grab him in the third round.
When the Wings drafted Fedorov at No. 74, there were snickers from competing teams because he might never be able to come to the NHL. But taking a page worthy of a John Le Carré novel, the Wings got their man during an exhibition game in Portland in the lead-up to the Goodwill Games. A hotel key was slipped under a door. A team employee collected Fedorov’s belongings while he was at the game. Another employee waiting in the lobby, a signal for Fedorov to follow him to a taxi that idled nearby (the driver had been tipped $100 to not ask questions). Mike Ilitch’s private plane, ready for takeoff.
Fedorov made his NHL debut that fall and it didn’t take long to show why the Wings chanced a pick on him. In 1993-94 he became the first Russian to win the Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player. Three years later, he hoisted the Cup.
“Sergei had a tremendous career,” Lidström said. “When I came to the Wings, I think he came the year before I came, Sergei was already a star when I joined the team. A couple of years later, he was a superstar in the NHL. Hart Trophy winner, Stanley Cup winner. He won everything, so it’s well-deserved to see his jersey go up in the rafters, too.”
The Wings retired Lidström’s No. 5 soon after he retired in 2012. Fedorov’s departure as a free agent in 2003 caused a rift that didn’t heal until he (together with Lidström) was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2015.
Now, it’s the memories that matter – from the disappointment of the playoffs in the early to mid 1990s to relief – that linger.
“We had a few disappointing seasons, but we never thought we cannot have done it,” Fedorov said. “The fans drove us, supported us, win or lose, bad or good. It was an amazing platform for us to continue this hard working process until eventually to get that precious trophy to the city, to the state, to the fans.
“Those parades, over one million people. I think it was a sea of people. It was a tremendous honor to be on that stage and speak to all those people who really want us to succeed. And really thank God we did it. This kind of winning attitude, winning manner helped one another.”
Fedorov, 55, returned to Russia in 2009 having played 1,248 NHL games. After playing in the KHL, he turned to coaching CSKA Moscow, last doing so in 2023-24. Fedorov still resides in Moscow with his wife and two children, and after a lifetime of being on the road and answering the grueling demands of professional hockey, he’s enjoying a low profile.
” I want to stay with the family and grow together with my kids and be around,” Fedorov said.
Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter. Her books: “The Franchise: Detroit Red Wings, A Curated History of Hockeytown,” and “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft,” and “The Big 50: The Men and Moments that made the Detroit Red Wings” are available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.
Detroit, MI
Detroit man arrested following manhunt for double murder in Tennessee
STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. – A 28-year-old man from Detroit has been arrested for the murder of two people in Tennessee.
Troy Hutchinson and Rodrell Jeter were shot and killed Nov. 16, 2025, outside Nashville, Tennessee. A third man was hospitalized with critical injuries.
Police believe four men were traveling from Detroit to Atlanta in a Ford Bronco when the fourth man opened fire on the victims before leaving in the vehicle. The Bronco was found abandoned in Kentucky, just south of Cincinnati in Ohio.
Jeter and the man who was hospitalized were both from Detroit, while Hutchinson is from Atlanta.
A motive for the shooting remains unknown.
In late November, police identified the suspect as Dashonn Moten. He was indicted on 17 counts, including two counts of first-degree murder, attempted murder, and two counts of felony murder.
After nearly two months, Moten was arrested Friday, Jan. 10, in Sterling Heights and is awaiting extradition to Tennessee for his arraignment.
If convicted, Moten faces possible execution.
Copyright 2026 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.
Detroit, MI
Thompson: The new year brings a promising future for Detroit students
Detroit Public Schools Community District often gets a bad rap due to declining enrollment issues or longstanding challenges that led to the historic takeover of the school system before voters returned it to an elected board.
And in many cases, that is the lens through which the school system’s performance is examined and viewed across the state. But there are hidden stories of progress within a school system that is still struggling to define itself and to give young Detroiters hope for a meaningful future.
I saw that first-hand last week at Denby High School, part of the Detroit Public Schools Community District, on the city’s east side, where hundreds of young Black and Brown male students gathered in the basketball gym for the annual policing and prosperity forum.
The annual event initiated and led by tenacious Detroiter Sharlonda Buckman, the district’s assistant superintendent for family and community engagement, is one of the hidden jewels of the public school system and brings together male students from various high schools to discuss their interaction with law enforcement. On the panel were senior and junior police officers from the Detroit Police Department, as well as the district’s public safety chief, Labrit Jackson, all of whom took hard questions from the students about how to navigate the complexities of the criminal justice system.
Before the start of the forum, I met three students: 17-year-old Justin Montgomery, 17-year-old Exavier Ward and 16-year-old Wesley Lewis, all students of Denby.
The three of them live on the east side and are serious and determined students who believe they have an obligation to be worthy ambassadors of their communities.
“I just got a scholarship from Cleary University for track and field and cross country and I just signed the papers so I can be committed,” Ward told me. “I am excited for the new year and I’m ready to live my adult life.”
His parents are also joyful about his future because, “out of all of my siblings, I’m going to be the first one to go to college. I want to major in cybersecurity,” he says.
Montgomery is scouting Oakland University or Central Michigan University and is also interested in a trades school. He’s keeping his options open.
“I have been here for a while and I’m ready to get out of high school. The experience has been good for me,” he says.
For Lewis, graduating in 2027 will make him the first in his family to be committed to college. That alone keeps him upbeat for the new year as he prepares for the challenges and the pressures of being an 11th grade student.
“I’m really ready to go to college. I’m looking at Kentucky State University, Wayne State University and Michigan State University,” he says. “I probably would major in music in college because I currently play the piano. But sometimes I get nervous about college because I feel like it is going to be harder than high school.”
These impressive young men speak to the vitality of the school system and the need to continue to nurture and support them.
The forum on policing and prosperity reinforces that need.
“This forum is so important because we give the students an opportunity to have a voice and talk about the things that are important to them and how they interact with law enforcement,” says Marty Bulger, the district’s senior director of male mentoring.
“Even a more dynamic piece is the fact that because the city has seen a reduction in violent crime, we believe as we reach our young people, we will continue to see a decline. These young men are our future leaders.”
X (formerly Twitter): @BankoleDetNews
bankole@bankolethompson.com
Bankole Thompson’s columns appear on Mondays and Thursdays in The Detroit News.
Detroit, MI
How are Lions fans feeling after Bears’ thrilling win vs. Packers?
The NFL showed on Saturday why they’re the best league in professional American sports. Both Wild Card games were phenomenal, and the dramatic finishes in each game were jaw-dropping. But let’s put aside the thrilling Rams vs. Panthers finish, because the nightcap was far more interesting to Detroit Lions fans.
The Chicago Bears somehow mounted yet another fourth-quarter comeback against the Green Bay Packers in what is already a defining moment in Ben Johnson’s career as the Bears head coach. I got a sense from most Lions fans that they were rooting against Johnson and the Bears for obvious reasons: It’s tough to watch your offensive coordinator go out there and win the division and beat the Packers in the playoffs in his first year.
But there was also a strong contingent of Lions fans out there after Saturday’s outstanding drama reminding people that the Packers remain enemy No. 1—a sentiment I happen to agree with.
So today’s Question of the Day is:
How are you feeling after the Bears’ wild win over the Packers?
My answer: I was definitely among the people rooting against the Bears on Saturday night. For me, it was less about Ben Johnson and more about the Bears being exposed as somewhat fraudulent. Their defense is bad and over-reliant on turnovers, and the last-second comebacks are completely unsustainable. In both of those senses, Saturday was a miserable failure for those narratives. I mean, this statistic is absolutely ridiculous:
And as much as I hate to do it, I have to give the Bears defense credit for changing up their gameplan out of the half, making Jordan Love look uncomfortable for the final two quarters, and holding Green Bay to just six second-half points without even forcing a turnover. As for the comebacks, they can’t keep getting away with it, right???
All of that said, I was still grinning ear-to-ear after the game. For one, I just love dramatic, entertaining football. I’ll take that result any day over the Packers beating the Bears 42-0.
Additionally, the Packers just had their hearts ripped out. One of the most pompous and smug franchises in all of sports now has to sit there and come to terms with blowing an 11-point lead in the final five minutes to their biggest rival. They have to marinate in a 1-4 record in their last five playoff games. And now they have to seriously consider whether their coach—once billed as one of the winningest coaches in NFL history—is the right guy to lead them into the future.
So I’m still brimming with schadenfreude this wonderful Sunday morning, and no amount of “did you write this article from Cancun?” comments will hurt me.
What are your thoughts on the game and the NFC North? Scroll down to the comment section and sound off!
-
Detroit, MI1 week ago2 hospitalized after shooting on Lodge Freeway in Detroit
-
Technology6 days agoPower bank feature creep is out of control
-
Dallas, TX4 days agoAnti-ICE protest outside Dallas City Hall follows deadly shooting in Minneapolis
-
Delaware3 days agoMERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach
-
Dallas, TX1 week agoDefensive coordinator candidates who could improve Cowboys’ brutal secondary in 2026
-
Montana2 days agoService door of Crans-Montana bar where 40 died in fire was locked from inside, owner says
-
Iowa6 days agoPat McAfee praises Audi Crooks, plays hype song for Iowa State star
-
Virginia2 days agoVirginia Tech gains commitment from ACC transfer QB