A sigh of relief for the Swift Current Broncos on the weekend as they picked up their first win of the season 5-4 over Prince Albert on Saturday.
"Everybody wanted that one," said Broncos assistant coach Regan Darby post-game during Redhead Equipment & Case IH Broncos Hockey on Country 94.1. "Getting the first one out of the way is a big relief... wanted some consistency, wanted some urgency. I really feel like we got that. We've been harping on that in practice just good practice habits, doing the right things, playing the right way, playing hard, hard on pucks. I felt like for the most part we were pretty consistent with that."
Swift Current got down 3-1 after the first period against the Raiders and risked starting the season with a fourth consecutive loss.
"I didn't think our first was that bad with the exception of a few mistakes," Darby said. "We have a young group, we have a young green (defensive corps) with four 17-year-olds on the back end, they're going to make mistakes. The biggest thing is we talked about our habits, and we just got to stick with those and we just continued to build off of those habits."
Darby was pleased with the effort from young defenders Caleb Potter and Jace McFaul.
"Caleb had a great game," Darby noted. "He had extreme poise with the puck, he didn't rush plays, defended well, he was back for pucks quick, you know? He played really well with McFaul. For young guys it's a tough league to play in and they showed a lot of poise."
The 1-3 Broncos have two tough divisional games coming up on the weekend when they host Saskatoon on Friday and visit Brandon on Saturday.
Swift Current dropped both ends of a home-and-home with the Blades to open the season.