A run-in on the track that sent sparks flying, literally and figuratively, ended up disqualifying Aaron Turnbull, Joey Galloway and Mason Big Eagle from Saturday's season finale at Estevan Motor Speedway.
Turnbull entered the evening with the season modified championship all sewn up, as long as he started the feature and didn't get a DQ.
You'd think the M.O. under those circumstances would be to avoid trouble at all costs, and anyone who's followed Turnbull's career has seen this kind of thing before.
But as every one of us knows, our tempers are powerful and usually irrational.
For the second time in three years, an incident involving Aaron resulted, directly or indirectly, in his brother Tyson winning the season championship.
It's a bit funny, because Tyson cares a lot more about winning races than taking home the championship. Yet here he is with two of them now, just by being in the mix when the top man on the totem pole falls off.
There was also some drama earlier in the night when two hobby stock drivers nearly got in a fistfight had it not been for a track official standing nearby to break it up.
Back to racing. It was a pleasure to watch Rocky Alexander and Kelly Henderson, two skilled veteran street stock drivers, go at it with their championship on the line.
Henderson has proven over the years at EMS that he's a hell of a driver, and I'm sure he would have made up the five-point spread had it been anyone else.
But it's tough to beat Alexander by that much when he rarely finishes outside the top three.
Both drivers started well back, but very quickly weaved their way forward and were never more than three cars apart in the process.
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Estevan Bruins leading scorer Dylan Smith has left the team to play in the little-known Eastern Junior Hockey League in the U.S.
Although the move to that league is a bit puzzling, his departure from the Bruins is not a major surprise.
Smith was, frankly, awful after Christmas last season and there have been indications that he wasn't the best teammate off the ice.
His name surfaced in trade discussions at least one time last season and that ramped up this summer when it seemed likely he would leave one way or the other.
Smith is a natural goal scorer who was one of the most talented players in the SJHL, but the effort and all-around game just didn't seem to be there on many nights last year.
It won't be easy for the Bruins to replace his production, particularly the kind of numbers he put up early last season, but there are lots of candidates to step up, including Tyler Paslawski, Matt Brykaliuk, Taylor Reich, Tanner Froese and Ben Johnstone.
Smith was taken off the first unit with Calder Neufeld and Cole Olson for quite a stretch last season in a message-sending exercise. A few players were given a shot in his regular spot.
Now it's time to see if that pays dividends.
Josh Lewis can be reached by phone at 634-2654, by e-mail at [email protected], on Twitter at twitter.com/joshlewis306 or on his Bruins Banter blog at estevanmercury.ca/bruinsbanter. He will most likely be quoting The Newsroom for the next 10 months while waiting for Season 2.
