By Jeff D'Andrea

Alex wins the BROzar battle, his Mintos double up Owen’s Legionnaires

Dec 3, 2017 | 3:18 PM

Even before the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League season campaign, Prince Albert hockey players and brothers Owen and Alex Ozar looked at the schedule and found out when Owen’s Swift Current Legionnaires would take on Alex’s Prince Albert Mintos.

Sunday’s game had an extra circle over it, as it’s the only scheduled game between the brothers and their teams to play each other in their hometown rink, the Art Hauser Centre. Alex’s Mintos had the last laugh as they beat Owen’s Legionnaires 4-2.

“Every game this year, we planned before the season even started,” Alex said, now that his Mintos have a 2-0-0-1 advantage over the Legionnaires in three games played. “We were looking forward to all the games we play this year. It’s lots of fun. It’s a dream come true.”

Before the game, the ‘BROzars’ shared some pre-game greetings at centre ice. But when Owen started stickhandling to try and prepare for the game, Alex stuck his stick in his brother’s face to try and put him off (pictured above).

“I was just having fun with him,” laughed Alex. “Just bugging him and having a good time.”

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Owen is in his second year with the Legionnaires. The pint-sized five-foot-six, 145 pound forward is the team’s captain is fifth in league scoring in Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League scoring with 15 goals and 30 points in 21 games.

He added an assist in Sunday’s game, but also received a misconduct for getting into a shoving match with former teammate and current Mintos goaltender Carter Woodside after the final buzzer.

Despite being two years younger, Alex is listed as six inches taller than Owen at five-foot-10. But like his older brother, he’s producing points. As the youngest defenceman on the Mintos, Alex leads the team in defence scoring with 15 points (one goal, 14 assists).

Alex was double drafted this offseason, going in the fifth round to the Saskatoon Blades in the WHL Bantam Draft and first overall in the SJHL Draft to the La Ronge Ice Wolves.

Unfortunately, this is the first and last time the ‘BROzar battle’ will occur this year in their hometown rink—unless both teams meet in the playoffs. The reason behind that is both teams met at the Warman Showcase to start the year just north of Saskatoon, and the Mintos were the ‘home team’ in that game in a 6-2 victory.

Both teams will play their fourth and final matchup against each other on Dec. 10 in Swift Current (fifth, 11-9-0-2). Before then, the Mintos (fourth, 15-4-2-0) will head to Tisdale to take on the Trojans on Wednesday.

Mintos 4 Legionnaires 2

With Saturday’s 5-2 defeat to the first place Regina Pat Canadians still in their mouths, the Mintos got rid of it quickly after scoring four goals in the first 13 minutes of the game to take an early 4-0 lead.

“It’s something we didn’t do yesterday, so we talked about it after the game,” Mintos head coach Ken Morrison said. “The guys were jacked up at the start of this one and it paid off. We talked to the leadership group and told them ‘you guys have to think of some things to get the guys ready to play.’”

Mintos defenceman Kade McMillen was a huge part of that scoring surge to start the game; he scored a goal and assisted on two others.

“He’s a leader, he was working hard and doing the right things today. It paid off,” Morrison said.

Josh Pillar and Austin Lamotte also had a goal and an assist. Dylan Scriven had the other marker.

With 49 seconds left in the period, Mac Gross got the Legionnaires on the board.

The scored stayed that way until the 1:12 mark of the third period, when Jakob Piller put the Legionnaires within two goals.

Jeff.dandrea@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @jeff_paNOW