The Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League will have a new look when the puck drops for the 2013-14 season.
The league's board of governors voted to move from two conferences to three divisions at the SJHL's mid-season meetings in Melfort on the weekend.
It's the first major realignment for the league since 1987, when the teams were divided into two divisions.
The new format will see the Estevan Bruins in a division with the Weyburn Red Wings, Yorkton Terriers and Melville Millionaires.
Another division will include the Notre Dame Hounds, Kindersley Klippers, Battlefords North Stars and Humboldt Broncos, while the northernmost division will feature the Nipawin Hawks, Melfort Mustangs, La Ronge Ice Wolves and Flin Flon Bombers.
Teams will play 56 games under the new arrangement.
The top 10 teams will make the playoffs. The top two teams in each division qualify automatically, followed by the next four best teams in the league, who will be considered wildcards.
The post-season will begin with a best-of-five play-in round that sees the seventh-place team play 10th-place and eighth-place against ninth-place. The two teams advancing from that will be re-seeded as seventh and eighth for the nxt round.
Bruins president Jeff Pierson said he believes the new alignment will help cut down travel in the regular season, but it may hurt in the playoffs, since they will be league-wide.
"I think it has a lot of positives. Come playoffs, depending on how the cards fall, it could have a few negatives. As a club in the southeast corner, you don't want to be playing Flin Flon in the first round, but it could happen," said Pierson.
He added that the travel within the Bruins' new division will be "minimal," as the furthest drive within the division is three hours to Yorkton.
Bruins head coach and general manager Keith Cassidy said the competition will be fierce with two traditional rivalries being played out in the new division.
"Being in a group with Yorkton, Melville and Weyburn, that's going to be an exciting division and it's certainly going to be a situation where, for all divisions, it's going to create an atmosphere that there's no off nights," he said.
"Yorkton and Melville always have a top end squad, so it's going to be a pretty tough division."
The biggest benefactor in the new alignment is the Klippers, who now share a division with their biggest rival, the North Stars, as well as the next closest-team in Humboldt.
Previously, Kindersley's closest division rival, Notre Dame, was four hours away.
The Hounds now have the short end of the stick travel-wise, with the Broncos being their closest rival about three hours away.
