{"id":355111,"date":"2025-12-18T00:37:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T00:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/355111\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T00:37:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T00:37:06","slug":"detroit-red-wings-photographer-given-game-puck-after-death-of-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/355111\/","title":{"rendered":"Detroit Red Wings photographer given game puck after death of daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>. It was a passion he cherished sharing with his daughter.<\/p>\n

“She was a huge, huge sports fan,” Reginek said. “She could go toe to toe with just about anybody. And it was just\u00a0something that her and I always had together. Sports and taking pictures. She was great at taking pictures.”<\/p>\n

From Thanksgiving to tragedy<\/p>\n

Reginek is part of the photo team that shoots the Detroit Lions<\/a>‘ annual Thanksgiving Day game, which means celebrating the holiday with family \u2212 his wife, Colleen, Reggie, son David and his wife and their children \u2212 means postponing it a day or two. This year, they celebrated on Nov. 29.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“It was nice that we did get that.”<\/p>\n

The next day, they got a phone call, the start of a nightmare.<\/p>\n

“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\u00a0two hours. They finally got a pulse, but after four minutes of no oxygen to your brain,\u00a0your brain starts to die.”<\/p>\n

Reginek describes that Sunday, Nov. 30, as the day “we lost her beautiful soul.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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\u00a0to walk down that path. And he held her hand the whole way.”<\/p>\n

Hundreds of people lined the hallways. The Regineks stopped to thank every one of them.<\/p>\n

“That was very tough,” Reginek said. “They had two floors\u00a0and we had to take an elevator down and both floors were lined up. It was very emotional.\u00a0As I walked by every one of them, I looked at them and I said,\u00a0thank you, and\u00a0there had to be 150, 200 people. I told them, you are all living angels.”<\/p>\n

There were complications with the internal organs, but her skin and her eyes were harvested.<\/p>\n

Reginek describes Monday, Dec. 8, as the day “we lost her body.”<\/p>\n

Unimaginable grief<\/p>\n

The Regineks are determined to go forward with a pre-planned holiday party. It’s what Reggie would have wanted.<\/p>\n

“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?<\/p>\n

“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\u00a0kids. She would have wanted us to have it.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

And there is going through her belongings, which can bring both overpowering sadness \u2212 and gratitude.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“My son found it\u00a0and 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.\u00a0It 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.<\/p>\n

“That’s where that tear landed.\u00a0I didn’t even read down that far. I couldn’t. But that’s how I saw it. My tear.”<\/p>\n

The Red Wings family<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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,<\/a> but as soon as Reginek entered, the music was turned off, and captain Dylan Larkin stood up.<\/p>\n

“He made a comment about my daughter\u00a0passing while they were on the road trip,” Reginek said. “He says, ‘you’re always taking our pictures. We want to do a team picture\u00a0with you.’ So he gave me the game puck and I did the best I could, kind of thanked him and told him\u00a0how grateful I was.<\/p>\n

“The win was the biggest win of my life with the team.\u00a0They dedicated it to her. That was overwhelming.”<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

In the hallway outside the locker room, general manager Steve Yzerman was waiting.<\/p>\n

“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\u00a0through. Not that he could truly understand the pain, you can only imagine it, you can’t put it into\u00a0words.”<\/p>\n

Reggie’s legacy<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“My wife kind of made a list of things,\u00a0bullet points of things, that people kept saying over and over again,” Reginek said.<\/p>\n

There were so many.<\/p>\n

“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.'”<\/p>\n

Now that joyful and loving person is gone from Reginek’s life, but never from their hearts. Never from their souls.<\/p>\n

MORE: Wings’ scorching run leaves Todd McLellan wondering if they’re ‘finally getting it’<\/a><\/p>\n

Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read more on the Detroit Red Wings<\/a> and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter<\/a>. Her books: \u201cThe Franchise: Detroit Red Wings<\/a>, A Curated History of Hockeytown,\u201d and \u201cOn the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft,\u201d and \u201cThe Big 50: The Men and Moments that made the Detroit Red Wings\u201d are available from\u00a0Amazon<\/a>, Barnes & Noble<\/a> and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dave Reginek’s voice broke as he spoke about a letter he had just found from his daughter. In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[9069,6177,8609,27605,2120,1786,14805,15911,399,664,15903,13547,3,385,13470,13560,15902,1472,99,2415,6072,21997,13692,13469],"class_list":["post-355111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-american","tag-american-football","tag-death","tag-death-u0026-tragedy","tag-detroit","tag-detroit-red-wings","tag-exclude","tag-exclude-from-paywall-logic-testing","tag-football","tag-from","tag-logic","tag-neutral","tag-news","tag-nhl","tag-overall","tag-overall-neutral","tag-paywall","tag-red","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-testing","tag-tragedy","tag-u0026","tag-wings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}