Two Meijer 16U girls pass away in car accident

By @MichaelCaples –

Last night, the hockey community lost two of its players in a tragic car accident.

Darian Locklear and Julianna Ward-Brown – both members of the Meijer 16U girls team – passed away in an accident on their way to practice.

Locklear was a junior at Brighton High School; Ward-Brown was a junior at Howell High School.

“As you can imagine, we are all devastated – in shock,” said Tom Berry, Meijer AAA hockey director. “There is no guidebook to navigate this kind of tragedy. My heart breaks for their families, their teammates and their friends.”

The Meijer program will have grief counselors from Ele’s Place in Lansing on hand for the players, coaches and parents during the team’s regularly-scheduled practice time on Thursday at The Summit in Lansing.

The MiHockey staff’s thoughts and prayers are with the families, the Meijer hockey family, and the hockey community as a whole.

UPDATE: Per the Meijer AAA Hockey website, details surrounding the funeral arrangements have been announced for Darian Locklear along with GoFundMe pages for both families:

Darian Locklear
Phillips Funeral Home
122 W. Lake St. (which is also 10 Mile)
South Lyon, MI 48178
Visitation, Saturday 4-9pm
Funeral Service, Sunday 10:30am

Funeral arrangements for Julianna Ward-Brown are still being finalized with MacDonald’s Funeral Home in Howell, MI and will be available on their website later today.

A GoFundMe Page has been set up for Julianna’s family to help with funeral expenses.

A GoFundMe Page has been set up in Darian’s name for the Darian Locklear Hockey Scholarship Memorial Fund.

Meijer AAA Hockey will also be setting up a Memorial Fund in both girls’ names. More details to come.