There's something special about rivalries in junior hockey. Whether it's the culture, the proximity (many of these teams are less than an hour's bus ride from each other, and how many pro teams can say that?), the youth and hot blood of the players, or a combination of all those things, there's something about a good rivalry game at the junior level that brings out hockey at its best.

It's also hockey at its roughest, toughest, and nastiest. If "old time hockey" isn't your thing, you may not appreciate the great junior rivalries as much as I do.

And there are many great junior rivalries, most of which harken to a time before any players or even coaches on the teams were born. Peterborough and Oshawa in the Ontario Hockey League springs to mind. Out West well, take your pick. Prince Albert and Saskatoon is a classic. Then there's Regina and Moose Jaw, among many others. 

As for the SJHL, there are plenty of rivalries forged in the playoffs. Ask around the Estevan Bruins locker room and you'll find a deep abiding dislike of the Battlefords North Stars. But the really great rivalries, the ones that transcend the standings and are based on geography and longstanding hatred, take the cake every time.

Enter Estevan and Weyburn

The Highway 39 rivalry is one of the best junior rivalries I've personally witnessed. I got my first taste of it on December 30, when Estevan played a nasty, physical game that descended into a melee in the third period with four fights in the final frame.

Bruins coach Chris Lewgood's response to all this post-game? A big grin and "Get used to that." The Highway 39 rivalry was alive and well, and the players and coaches loved it.

Chris did warn me not to expect that many fights every time, and indeed the very next game the Bruins and Red Wings played a game shockingly free of fisticuffs, but the jarring body checks and battles in the trenches were there in spades.

The results favored Estevan, though as Chris told me after the game on the 30th, games between these two teams hurt more to lose than they feel good to win. This year, that's especially true. 

As much as the players will say the standings have never mattered in this rivalry, the two teams battling it out atop the Viterra division adds another layer to an already intricate hatred between the two squads. At the start of the home-and-home over New Year's, Estevan held a tenuous two-point lead, but Weyburn held two games in hand. The Red Wings still have the two extra games, but now trail by six points. An eight-point series indeed. 

Estevan and Weyburn will play more of those eight-point series before the season is wrapped up. Whether they'll reach the intensity of the game on the 30th, which also Michael McChesney given a bizarre five-minute match penalty and saw the Bruins rile the Wings by saluting the Estevan-heavy crowd, remains to be seen. What is pretty much guaranteed is that the two teams will play nasty, fast, entertaining hockey six more times this year.

To have had a front row seat for the opening barage of the SJHL's biggest rivalry was quite a privilege. Now, let's do that six more times. 

Until next time, Rob Mahon bidding you farewell.