Dave Leaderhouse
Special to the Herald
The off-season for the Prince Albert Mintos has been anything but smooth as weeks after naming a new general manager the club is now looking for a new head coach for the 2026-27 Saskatchewan Male AAA Hockey League.
“It’s not a nice situation to have a new head coach five times in five years, but we understand Dion’s (Antisin) situation,” says Mintos’ president and governor Mike Mazurak. “We certainly want to get some stability in that area.”
The call for a new head coach came about three weeks ago when Dion Antisin informed the team he was leaving the club for family reasons. Mazurak says applications are being accepted until Friday at which time those received will be reviewed to move several on to the next stage, which is interviews.
“We’ve got a few so we want to narrow it down to two or three,” says Mazurak. “We are planning on having interviews on Tuesday (June 9) and make a decision on Wednesday.”
The short turnaround is crucial as the league’s annual general meeting is June 22 with the scheduling meeting set to take place the following day. Having a new bench boss in place for those major dates makes planning for the future much easier and smoother.
Antisin was with the Mintos just one season and plans for next year were already in motion as he had been in charge of the club’s spring camp in mid-April. With his permanent residence being Regina, and his family to be expanding in the near future, the decision to step aside was made adding more excitement to an already full off-season for the Mintos.
Late last month the club had announced that Chris Bourdon would be the team’s new general manager, replacing Dennis Potts who was not returning for next season. The local fireman inherits a team that was 14-24-4-2 last year and missed the playoffs after finishing in 10th place in the 12-team league.
After having Tim Leonard in charge of the team for nearly a decade, a time where the team won a pair of Telus Cup championships and then added a third with Ken Morrison behind the bench not long after that, the Mintos have been on a bit of a carousel of late having seen Danton Danielson, Doan Smith and Leonard again before Antisin entered the picture in 2025.
Fall camp for the Mintos is just over two months away with the regular season normally starting around mid-September. A lot of work has to be done before then.
