Detroit, MI
Red Wings photographer given special moment after tragic loss
Dave Reginek’s voice broke as he spoke about a letter he had just found from his daughter. In it, she spoke of never wanting to hurt him. He saw that part when he tried to mop up a tear that had fallen on the paper.
It is a letter that is almost heartbreaking now, as the Reginek family copes with the loss of Danielle “Reggie” Reginek, who passed away Dec. 8 due to heart failure. She was 41.
Reginek and Reggie used to bond over photography. His interest in the field began when he was 11 years old and got a Yashica camera from his mom, who got it from a bar patron in lieu of paying his tab. Reginek turned an early hobby into the job of a lifetime when in 2002-03, he was hired as the team photographer by the Detroit Red Wings. It was a passion he cherished sharing with his daughter.
“She was a huge, huge sports fan,” Reginek said. “She could go toe to toe with just about anybody. And it was just something that her and I always had together. Sports and taking pictures. She was great at taking pictures.”
From Thanksgiving to tragedy
Reginek is part of the photo team that shoots the Detroit Lions’ annual Thanksgiving Day game, which means celebrating the holiday with family − his wife, Colleen, Reggie, son David and his wife and their children − means postponing it a day or two. This year, they celebrated on Nov. 29.
“We were playing cards with her aunt and my daughter-in-law, some other games, laughing and having fun and it was all good,” Colleen said. “She was here for a couple, three hours.
“It was nice that we did get that.”
The next day, they got a phone call, the start of a nightmare.
“Sunday morning, my son called me and said that her boyfriend had called, something was wrong,” Reginek said. “They’re giving her CPR and taking her to Trinity Health in Livonia. We got over there as quick as we could. They were working on her for almost two hours. They finally got a pulse, but after four minutes of no oxygen to your brain, your brain starts to die.”
Reginek describes that Sunday, Nov. 30, as the day “we lost her beautiful soul.”
Five days later, they took her off life support. They tried to honor Reggie’s generous spirit and wish to be an organ donor by working with the Gift of Life program. Having never gotten to walk Reggie down the aisle for a wedding, the Regineks instead walked her down two corridors at the hospital, to the operating room.
“He thought this was his last chance for him to walk with her,” Colleen said. “So as much as he doesn’t like wearing suits, he got all dressed up in a suit and I was in a dress and we were all dressed up to walk down that path. And he held her hand the whole way.”
Hundreds of people lined the hallways. The Regineks stopped to thank every one of them.
“That was very tough,” Reginek said. “They had two floors and we had to take an elevator down and both floors were lined up. It was very emotional. As I walked by every one of them, I looked at them and I said, thank you, and there had to be 150, 200 people. I told them, you are all living angels.“
There were complications with the internal organs, but her skin and her eyes were harvested.
Reginek describes Monday, Dec. 8, as the day “we lost her body.”
Unimaginable grief
The Regineks are determined to go forward with a pre-planned holiday party. It’s what Reggie would have wanted.
“We have grandchildren and this is Christmas time,” Colleen said. “We have our Christmas party at my son’s house, and he’s like, do we cancel? Should we not have it?
“And it’s like, no. Reggie taught us more than anything that family is what is important and we have to move on for the kids. She would have wanted us to have it.”
As they try to figure out how to move forward, the Regineks are dealing with the other pain that can come with losing a loved one: Sorting out their affairs. Reggie did not have a will, and they don’t have her passwords to her phone, credit cards, and other accounts. On top of the grief, there is so much paperwork.
And there is going through her belongings, which can bring both overpowering sadness − and gratitude.
It was while sorting through her desk that the family found a letter Reggie had written two years ago, after a disagreement with her dad over something she did that he didn’t like.
“My son found it and brought it to us the other day,” Reginek said, emotion breaking his voice. “It’s so sweet. It’s so touching. She felt like she needed to write it down and she did. It was hard to read. It was so heartfelt. And while I was reading it, a tear fell from my face and it hit a part, the part where she said, I don’t ever want to hurt you and mom.
“That’s where that tear landed. I didn’t even read down that far. I couldn’t. But that’s how I saw it. My tear.”
The Red Wings family
Reginek is used to having great access to the team, but he usually only gets called into the locker room after a game if a player is celebrating a milestone.
Tuesday was different. Early in the day, he received a phone call from a staff member asking him to come to the locker room after the game, regardless of outcome. The Wings were blasting music to celebrate their 3-2 victory over the New York Islanders, but as soon as Reginek entered, the music was turned off, and captain Dylan Larkin stood up.
“He made a comment about my daughter passing while they were on the road trip,” Reginek said. “He says, ‘you’re always taking our pictures. We want to do a team picture with you.’ So he gave me the game puck and I did the best I could, kind of thanked him and told him how grateful I was.
“The win was the biggest win of my life with the team. They dedicated it to her. That was overwhelming.”
Afterward, one by one, players hugged Reginek. Todd McLellan, the coach, offered his condolences. “He said if we need anything, to please reach out,” Reginek said. “They were all very sincere about it.”
In the hallway outside the locker room, general manager Steve Yzerman was waiting.
“I seen Stevie making a beeline towards me,” Reginek said. “We talked for like 10 minutes. He’s got three daughters and I know he felt my pain or could see it. I think he understands the devastation that we’re going through. Not that he could truly understand the pain, you can only imagine it, you can’t put it into words.”
Reggie’s legacy
As news spread of their loss, the Regineks were overwhelmed with messages of love and condolences. They knew Reggie was special, that her energy and smilie and infectious joy had touched so many. Now they saw it.
“My wife kind of made a list of things, bullet points of things, that people kept saying over and over again,” Reginek said.
There were so many.
“It was ‘her big, welcoming heart, her bright light, her big, beautiful smile,’” Colleen said. “‘A truly amazing person, loyal friend. What a kindhearted, beautiful person she was. How you could pick her laugh out of a hundred people in a room. A friend who would always be there for you. How genuine she was.’”
Now that joyful and loving person is gone from Reginek’s life, but never from their hearts. Never from their souls.
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.
No Kings protesters march down Woodward Ave. in Detroit
Hundreds of protesters take Woodward Ave. to protest the Trump administration on March 28, 2026 as part of the No Kings day of action.
For some passersby in Detroit, the thousands of people who took to the streets on Saturday, March 28, to denounce President Donald Trump and his administration’s policies were a comfort. To others, they were an annoyance or worse.
But across the state, protesters sought to catch their eye and share with each other encouragement and concerns on the third so-called No Kings Day in a year protesting the president.
Crowds gathered in Holland, Adrian, West Bloomfield and Lansing. One sign in Ann Arbor read, “I’m tired of this, Grandpa,” and one in Battle Creek read, “End The War.” In Romulus, politicians rallied against the potential for an immigration detention center to be built there, and in Dearborn, a lawyer once detained by such agents called for the dismantling of their department. In Detroit, a teacher described the empty chairs of detained students, and a mother held up a painting of an explosion taking place in front of a child, symbolic of American military actions.
In a statement released ahead of the protests, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson made little of the efforts.
“The only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them,” she said.
Onlookers, politicians and participants weighed in during conversations with the Free Press.
Onlookers
Jackee Oliver, 37, of Detroit, made her way back from her neighborhood store with her mom and 11-year-old daughter sporting stickers that read, “I Stood Up For Democracy Today,” and included a symbol of a crossed-out crown.
They’d been running their errand when they passed through the No Kings gathering about 11 a.m. on the east side of Detroit bordering Grosse Pointe on Mack Avenue between Cadieux and Neff roads. Oliver said she didn’t realize the protest was happening but hoped to come back out to join.
It was “a good thing,” she said, with her mom, Devita Williams, 58, of Ypsilanti, adding her thoughts on the Trump administration: “I’d like to get them all out the White House.”
Community members eyeing the crowd of roughly 200 people who marched through their Southwest Detroit neighborhood west of Clark Park on Saturday afternoon offered differing takes on the matter.
One man, translated by his nephew, said it was good and should be everywhere. Another said the group probably didn’t live in Southwest Detroit. Still others called it awesome or said the group should take their protest elsewhere.
In downtown Detroit, as at least a couple of thousand protesters marched along Woodward Avenue, several people headed to see the band the Black Label Society at The Fillmore said they got stuck in backups because of the march.
Shawn Roy, 49, drove from the Lansing area on his birthday with his son for that concert, he said while stuck behind a police SUV blocking Woodward for the marchers.
Roy is a Trump supporter but said he didn’t take issue with people using their right to protest. He just didn’t think their tactic was reasonable with so many events in town.
“This wouldn’t sway my mind even if I was on the fence,” he said.
Shortly thereafter, as the marchers started to depart, Milan Anderson-Whitfield, 19, of Northville, strolled up with her teenage little sister to see a group of drummers still playing and learn more. She held a sign she’d been given that read, “Keep your theology off my biology.”
She was tearing up as she spoke to a Free Press reporter, she said.
She’s anti-Trump. Seeing the gathering means a lot when you “don’t have anyone to talk to about this,” she said.
Elsewhere in the region, U.S. Rep. John James, a GOP candidate for governor, attended the Michigan Republican Party endorsement convention and called the demonstrations “just another manifestation of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
War, immigration, high costs and hope
Speakers across three rallies in Detroit spoke about not giving into despair, how immigration enforcement is causing harm in their view, their concern for voting rights, and how they disagree with Trump’s moves to attack Iran, remove Venezuela’s leader and to eye Cuba as “next.”
Speakers called for local policy change too. Faith leaders spoke, as did union members, activists and politicians such as Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, a Democrat who is a candidate for Michigan secretary of state, and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit.
In Clark Park, with more than 600 people listening, speakers called for Detroit police to release unedited video in use of force situations. They also called for college and city institutions to divest from businesses with ties to Israel.
The fight for immigrant rights and the fight against wars are interrelated, said Daniel Weber Alatorre of the Wayne State University chapter of Students for a Democratic Society.
“We create atrocities over there, immigrants come here and we beat them,” he told the crowd.
As those from the Clark Park rally marched, they chanted, “Trump wants war, Trump wants oil, hands off Iranian soil.”
As those at Detroit’s downtown Grand Circus Park marched later in the day, they chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Donald Trump has got to go.”
Before the start of that rally, Rubina Javed, 60, of Warren, held up a painting her daughter had made. It showed a child looking out at the site of an explosion, an apparent bombing of sorts. It represents Iran, Lebanon and beyond, and Trump lied when he campaigned on no wars, she said.
“We don’t need bombing,” Javed said. “We want peace, dignity and love.”
She urged others to join the cause of protesting Trump, saying more voices can make change.
Kristen Schoettle, who said she works as an English as a second language teacher at Western International High School in Detroit, also told the crowd to act after sharing her story of five students being taken by immigration agents. It’s harmed fellow students, too, she said.
She called on people to push back against police cooperation with immigration agents or do whatever else they can, whatever that may look like.
Metro Detroit protests
Robin Gillis and her husband, Michael, both 73, of West Bloomfield, braved the cold in their town with temperatures in the 20s and a dusting of snow on the ground to talk about the Iran war, the economy, worry for upcoming elections, and the president’s imperious tone.
“He likes to label people so he can denigrate them, humiliate them, and make them feel less important,” said Michael Gillis, who was among more than 100 people out on Orchard Lake Road.
In Macomb County, Susan Diliberti, 69, of Clinton Township, walked among hundreds in Sterling Heights with a sign saying “juntos somos América” on one side with the translation “together we are America” on the other.
She came out to the protest at Hall and Schoenherr roads because she’s worried about future generations and wants to fight for everyone to have the right to accessible, quality public education, universal healthcare and the environment, she said.
“I’m hoping that we’re going to have hope to move into something that is even better than what we had before all the chaos happened,” Diliberti said.
The war in the Middle East affects many Dearborn residents with loved ones overseas, said Dearborn Democratic Club recording secretary Diane Hall.
Her group organized the No Kings gathering of about 300 people Saturday at the Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn. It featured speakers from Arab Americans for Progress and the ACLU of Michigan, among others.
“This is hitting hard for the people in Dearborn, and we want to be able to show our support, but also express our rage, and our grief, and our optimism, that we can come together, elect candidates that will stand up against the war, stand up against the regime, and make the pain stop,” Hall said. “So, it’s political, but it’s also moral for us. It’s life. It’s a question of life and death.”
A site of controversy
Bubbles floated in the air, music played and an organizer handed out chalk for demonstrators to leave messages for immigration agents at a Romulus No Kings protest.
By 3:30 p.m. roughly 300 people had made it out to the event at the site of 7525 Cogswell St., a property the U.S. Department of Homeland Security purchased with plans to make it a detention facility.
Demonstrators of all ages joined local politicians including U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Detroit, and Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit at the rally. Tlaib made an appearance in Romulus, at least her third protest of the day, along with U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Ann Arbor, and Wayne County Commissioner Allen Wilson.
The Romulus protest differed from some others in Michigan because it demands specific, local, achievable action, said Chris Boyd, a member of organizing group Coalition to Shut the Camps.
Boyd said the recently developed group has already sent letters to companies and governmental organizations that would need to approve utilities for the facility.
His group has asked those institutions not to collaborate with the facility and more, and will hold those institutions accountable, he said.
There isn’t a clear timeline for the detention center’s construction. DHS officials previously said the facility’s construction and operation would lead to more than 1,400 jobs and create millions in tax revenue. On March 24, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Romulus officials announced they are suing DHS to prevent the opening of the planned facility.
Boyd said many protests show solidarity with groups being harmed by ICE, but few explore strategies to prevent people from being harmed. He said it’s going to take a shift to preventative strategies to stop harm.
“It’s not bad but it’s not sufficient,” Boyd said. “It’s OK to bring moms from Ann Arbor to go hang out with each other and hang out in the park and sing protest songs. That’s beautiful. It’s wonderful. It doesn’t change our outcomes. So we have to come up with other strategies that are sufficient and I think that’s what this is an example of.”
That said, he called the collective No Kings protests a powerful message and said the energy of such actions often fuel the practical work that follows.
Staff writer Paul Egan contributed to this story.
Detroit, MI
Ken Roczen wins second race of 2026 in Detroit, Hunter Lawrence crashes and loses points lead
DETROIT, Michigan: Ken Roczen won the second race of the 2026 season at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan, as Hunter Lawrence and Eli Tomac struggled. With this victory, Roczen is firmly in championship contention with a 14-point gap to the leader.
Chase Sexton secured second in his first race back after suffering an injury in a practice crash prior to Daytona. Sexton continued to get stronger during each session as he climbed his way through the ranks.
Malcolm Stewart secured his first podium of the season one week after getting his first top-five in Birmingham.
Justin Cooper stole a point from Tomac in the closing laps, but Tomac’s fifth-place finish along with Lawrence’s problems gave him the championship lead by four.
Tomac had to fight hard to stay in the top five as Cooper Webb challenged on the white flag lap. Webb crossed under the checkered flag in sixth.
450 Feature Results
In-Race Notes
Jorge Prado has been hot on the gate drop and he earned another holeshot in Detroit.
Meanwhile, Lawrence and Tomac both got poor starts and had to come through the field together.
Roczen stole the lead from Prado on Lap 2, bringing Webb with him.
Webb crashed with Prado and handed second to Sexton.
Incredibly, Lawrence was up to third on Lap 3; Tomac was fifth and gradually losing contact with the points leader. Tomac cannot afford to lose any more ground to Lawrence.
Stewart was the man in the middle of the two points challengers.
Webb settled into eighth. Prado fell to 14th.
Tomac was five seconds behind Lawrence at the halfway mark.
Dylan Ferrandis was in seventh on Lap 7. He was also returning from injury along with Sexton this week.
Lawrence crashed on Lap 10, hurting his bike in the crash. Lawrence had a 12-point lead at the time. Lawrence had not finished worse than fourth all year and was second or better in all but two races.
With the incident, Tomac moved up to fourth in the running. Lawrence was 19th at the time. This would give Tomac the points lead.
Lawrence had to pull into the mechanics area to replace his front wheel.
Roczen was in command of the race on Lap 15.
Tomac didn’t have the pace to fully take advantage of Lawrence’s crash and lost fourth to Cooper on Lap 18.
Roczen finished 7.8 seconds ahead of Sexton.
To the surprise of many of their critics, the Detroit Pistons have fared well since Cade Cunningham suffered a collapsed lung.
With his timetable still uncertain as the regular season enters the final stretch, the Pistons have taken the adversity head-on and have gone 4-1 in the games without Cunningham.
The Pistons’ lone loss came in a 130-129 overtime thriller against the Atlanta Hawks, in which Jalen Duren’s put-back shot in the final seconds came up an inch short.
During Cunningham’s absence, these three Pistons players have stepped up in a major way for Detroit, as they look to clinch the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference for the first time since the 2006-07 season.
Jalen Duren
A candidate for the NBA’s Most Improved Player of the Year, Jalen Duren, has put together an extraordinary season for the Pistons. In addition to averaging 19.5 points, 10.6 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per game for the Pistons, Duren has shown true leadership during Cunningham’s absence.
In the five games that Cunningham has been absent, Duren has scored 20-plus points in every matchup, including recording four double-doubles. If Cunningham is to return for the Pistons in the postseason, Duren will also play a crucial role in leading Detroit to a deep playoff run.
Daniss Jenkins
Over the last five games, the Pistons have seen the emergence of guard Daniss Jenkins. What started with an impressive performance in the Pistons’ win over the Golden State Warriors was immediately followed by Jenkins scoring a career-high 30 points in Detroit’s thrilling 113-110 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday night.
The emergence of Daniss Jenkins has been one of the top storylines for the Pistons this season, as last year, Jenkins was averaging only 1.0 points per game in only seven games played. Now, with the Pistons preparing for the postseason with the possibility of not having Cunningham, Jenkins could be an unsung hero for Detroit in the postseason.
Tobias Harris
The Pistons’ third-leading scorer, Tobias Harris, has also played a key role for Detroit without Cunningham. In the games that Harris has been absent from the Pistons, Harris has scored in double figures in four of those contests.
In the Pistons’ comeback that fell short against the Hawks in overtime, Harris played a critical role in leading Detroit to force overtime, as he finished the game with 22 points, three rebounds, and three assists, while shooting over 52.9 percent from the field.
Entering the postseason, Harris’ performance could be a key x-factor in the Pistons’ chances of making a deep playoff run. In the Pistons’ first-round playoff series loss against the New York Knicks last season, Harris averaged 15.7 points and 7.7 rebounds per game.
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