The wind whistling through the bowels of the Ladner Leisure Centre late Tuesday night was the sigh of the relief coming from the Delta Ice Hawks dressing room.

Not only had the Pacific International Junior Hockey League club recorded its first home ice win over the Richmond Sockeyes in two years, it had re-established a little bit of breathing room for the final playoff spot in the Tom Shaw Conference.

The Ice Hawks needed a shootout to produce a very rare 5-4 victory over the defending PIJHL champions to move back to .500 on the season and pull six points ahead of the Squamish Wolf Pack.

Dating back to the second half of the 2007-08 season, Delta has only one regular season win against their cross-river rivals. The dominance includes Richmond sweeping a pair of opening round playoff series the past two years.

If the post-season was to start tomorrow, guess which teams would meet again?

"It was a very important game for us tonight," said Ice Hawks general manager Peter Zerbinos who filled in behind the bench for a vacationing Jimmy Cammazola. "They key thing for us was to clear our minds of not having to beaten Richmond for a long time. That was the one thing we instilled in everybody's head through the entire pre-game (talk). It was basically if you don't believe you can do it then don't come out of that room.

"The boys we really prepared. We kept it simple and took it one period at a time."

The Ice Hawks looked to be on their way to a win in regulation when a Sockeyes defenceman collided with referee Kam Poirier -- causing a turnover and setting the stage for Seafair call-up Aaron Merrick to score his second goal of the game with 1:29 remaining.

Richmond showed why it owns a league best 23-6-5 record by bouncing back from the adversity with tremendous pressure and netting the equalizer on Trevor Hamaguchi's hat trick goal with 1.9 seconds left -- that bounced in off the skate of Ice Hawk captain Kye Benjaminsen."

Instead of wilting, it was the Ice Hawks turn to rebound and they responded with a solid five minute overtime with Spencer Traher and Benjaminson missing great chances to end it.

Benjaminsen did get some redemption when he netted the shootout winner after Liam Harding had scored on Delta's first attempt.

Goalie Andrew Hunt stopped four of five Richmond attempts and also turned aside 41 shots in regulation time.

"I thought our guys battled so hard that we weren't going to let this one get away," added Zerbinos. "Sometimes the old Ice Hawks would have caved in. Tonight I felt confident we would come back and win this."

Cody Smith and Harding had the other Ice Hawk goals.

The team was in Abbotsford last night and plays its final home game prior to the holiday break on Tuesday when North Delta visits at 7:30 p.m.

The club requests that all fans bring a non-perishable food item for the the South Delta Food Bank. The Ice Hawks will also be donating the proceeds of the 50/50 draw for that evening to the food bank. Any fan who makes a cash donation of $5 or more will receive a ticket to a future game.

Icing...

Tuesday night's game attracted the largest crowd of the season and saw the club raise $839.30 for the families who lost their homes during last month's Ladner Village fire. The Ice Hawks ownership matched the amount to donate $1,678.60 to the families. They thank all the people that came out to support the cause, and all the businesses that donated products to make the evening a success.