With Calgary and Edmonton waging a Week 4 battle for first place in the West Division, much was made last week about the return to prominence of the Battle of Alberta.

Now in Week 5 comes the hotly contested rivalry that has taken centre stage in recent seasons — the Stampeders and the Roughriders.

Calgary and Saskatchewan, who have claimed the top spots in the West in each of the past three seasons, renew hostilities on Saturday at Regina’s Mosaic Stadium. Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m. and the game will be broadcast by QR77 and TSN.

The Stamps’ record is square at 2-2 after the first four weeks of action while the Roughriders got into the win column for the first time in Week 4 with a win in Montreal.

“Saskatchewan’s always going to be a challenge no matter what they did (in the most recent game),” suggested Stamps head coach and general manager John Hufnagel. “I’m sure they’re feeling very good about themselves, as they should be. We know that Mosaic Stadium is not an easy place to play in. We’ll be playing a very good football team that will be emotionally high after a big win in Montreal. We’ll have our hands full.”

Calgary won the regular-season series against Saskatchewan in 2010 with two wins in three meetings — including a split of the two games in Regina — but the Roughriders won the contest that mattered most by prevailing in the West final.

The Stamps head into the contest having won four consecutive regular-season road games, a streak that started with a 34-26 victory at Mosaic in Week 16 of the 2010 campaign. That matches their longest road winning streak of the Hufnagel Era in Calgary, which started in 2008.

If Calgary can make it five in a row, it would be the club’s longest road winning streak since the Stamps won eight straight from Nov. 5, 1994 to Oct. 9, 1995. The franchise record is 13 straight road wins set in 1948 and 1949.

The Calgary coaching staff is stressing the importance of discipline after a flag-filled start to the season. The Stamps currently lead the league in two dubious categories — penalties (44) and penalty yardage (440).

“I’ve talked about that in our last meeting,” said Hufnagel. “One of our Achilles heels this year has been the amount of penalties we’ve been taking, especially the last three games (39 penalties for 389 yards). In the first game of the year, we were good at it but we have too many unnecessary roughness penalties, late hits on the quarterbacks . . . we’ve just got to clean that up.”

Hufnagel is not surprised to hear his players publicly express faith that the Stamps will accomplish very good things in 2011.

“I would be disappointed of they weren’t confident,” he said. “We’re a 2-2 team. We’re in second place in the West with a lot of season ahead of us. So if they had lost their confidence after four games of the season and being 2-2, I would be disappointed in them.”