The Swift Current Broncos and Moose Jaw Warriors have been in a collision course all season.

After a terrific seven-game series between the two clubs last spring, the dominos have been lining up for a whole year leading towards the re-match.

The Broncos and Warriors start every season against each other in the annual pre-season rookie game and a lot of the players grow up in the league playing against each other.

Both clubs got off to hot starts this fall and rocketed right to the top of the WHL standings. They've been neck and neck all season both in the points race and the CHL power rankings.

They both made significant additions on the trade market and hockey people have been speculating about this re-match for months.

"We all had a great idea that we would eventually face Moose Jaw," said Broncos forward Matteo Gennaro. "I think this is what everyone has worked hard for and what we prepared for. It's going to be a series that a lot of people want to see. Whoever comes out on top of this one should be rolling going into conference finals. It should be exciting."

Moose Jaw kept steadily ahead of the Broncos in the race for first place and were able to hold on despite the gap tightening a couple weeks before the end of the regular season. Now playoff redemption is on their minds.

"Obviously we're going to remember what happened (in the playoffs last year)," Warriors captain Brett Howden told DiscoverMooseJaw.com. "We didn't want to go out the way that we did and nobody forgets, we learn from it. It's a new season, new series, two new teams, so we're looking for a fresh start here."

The two teams split their eight-game regular season series with four wins each, but Moose Jaw took a 10-8 points advantage thanks to two of their losses coming in extra time. 

Both teams bring a dynamic offence into the series as the Warriors were the top scoring team in the WHL and Swift Current followed closely behind in third place. 

"We've got to be physical on them, they're a team that likes to play fast and with the puck and they have skilled players, so we've got to be aggressive," Gennaro said. "We can't allow them to have a lot of free time and space and that will work in our favour and hopefully set them back on their heels."

The list of top scorers in the league is littered with players from the two teams. Jayden Halbgewachs of the Warriors led the league in goals and points this season, while teammate Brayden Burke finished fourth in points. Swift Current's Glenn Gawdin was second in points, with Aleksi Heponiemi third and Tyler Steenbergen sixth. That's five of the league's top six scorers not to mention several more players among the top 40 in the league and two (Colby Sissons and Kale Clague) of the WHL's five top scoring defencemen.

"We don't to worry too much about them, we just want to worry about us and play fast and focus on what makes our game tick," Howden said. "If we just worry about us, do the best that we can with what we know that we’re good at then it should be a good series."

The Broncos and Warriors had the top two power plays in the regular season and also boasted strong penalty killing units. Their numbers have remained very similar in the playoffs. Swift Current scored 11 of their 21 goals against Regina on their lethal power play, while Moose Jaw's man advantage powered them to their Game 7 win over Prince Albert.

Moose Jaw and Swift Current were searching for more consistency during seven game battles with Prince Albert and Regina respectively. Despite pulling off a gutsy series victory, the Broncos are still working to avoid let downs like what happened in lopsided losses to the Pats in Games 4 and 6.

"I think we have to learn from the mistakes we had in that series," Gennaro said. "There were games where both teams were kind of blown out which you wouldn't think would be the case in a playoff series. For us it's those games coming off wins we have to be extra determined and consistent with our play really trying to take over the series."

Sometimes in playoffs stars have to check their egos and fill certain roles their teams need. Gennaro is one example of that as a 40 goal scorer who was tasked with shutting down Sam Steel's line in the Regina series and embraced the task while still scoring two key goals. The Broncos were able to hold Regina to only six goals in four games when they had control of last change at the Innovation Credit Union iPlex.

"For a guy like me that's an exciting one," Gennaro said. "I took pride in that knowing I was going to be matched up with Steel. That was a really big part for us to shut down their team... I think I took a lot of pride in that and made it my focus."

Moose Jaw holds home ice advantage in this series and will control the match-ups in Games 1 and 2 this weekend. The home team hasn't always had the advantage between these two teams as the road team won five out of the seven playoff games last spring and four of the eight regular season games this season.

The Broncos are sending a fan bus up to Moose Jaw for both games this weekend and you can contact the Stable for details.

We will have the broadcast for every game in the series on The Eagle 94.1 FM with Robertson Family Group Broncos Hockey at 6:30pm.