Pats pummel Broncos for first home win

Sometimes all it takes is a victory.

The Regina Pats are hoping that’ll be the case after securing their long-awaited first home-ice win of the season on Sunday — a dominant 7-1 triumph over the Swift Current Broncos.

Regina entered the contest with an 0-8-0 record at the Brandt Centre and five straight losses overall. Both streaks came to an end at the expense of the Broncos, who oc- cupy the WHL basement at 1-14-1.

Regardless of their opponent’s record, the Pats (4-11-0) will gladly take the victory in hopes it might lead to some semblance of momentum after a frustrating start to the campaign.

“It has been a long time coming,” said forward Nick Henry as 4,804 fans headed for the exits. “We’ve been sticking to it and there have been those lapses. We have to figure out how to get rid of those but tonight for 60 minutes (they kept it going ). It really showed in the third period that we did the right things. “It’s exciting to get that first one.” Regina opened the scoring with the first of two goals from Austin Pratt, who slipped a rebound past goalie Joel Hofer with 2:19 left in the first period.

The Pats made it 2-0 just 15 seconds into the middle frame when Hofer got caught trying to play the puck behind his net. Pratt forced the turnover and Henry eventually finished it off into an open net.

Regina added a short-handed goal 2:35 later thanks to a great individual effort by Duncan Pierce, who was stopped twice before Scott Mahovlich knocked in the rebound.

Just 3:56 later, Sergei Alkhimov redirected Henry ’s point shot past Hofer for a 4-0 lead.

Joona Kiviniemi put Swift Current on the board with 39 seconds left in the second, beating Max Paddock with a nice cross-crease move.

Alkhimov got it back 3:28 into the third with another redirection from the doorstep — this one off Marco Creta’s point shot — to give Regina a 5-1 advantage.

Pratt was back for more with 6:44 left as he cruised in from the right circle and fired a high shot into the short side. Riley Krane added some icing to the cake with 3:37 on the clock when his deflection of Nikita Sedov’s shot floated past Hofer.

Regina outshot Swift Current 40-22.

EXTRAS: The Pats wore pink helmets for their annual breast cancer awareness game ... Regina continues a five-game homestand on Friday against the Edmonton Oil Kings.