What about second breakfast of champions?
That’s how I’ve heard it.
never mind (I re-mentioned “brace of goals”)
Brit here: agree about the use of ‘brace’ in a sporting context (particularly football commentary/reporting), but outside of that (and probably shooting pheasants etc, but that’s not an area I’m familiar with), you wouldn’t hear it used unless someone used particularly old-fashioned or flowery language.
The OP mentioned Will Shortz, which leads me to believe that the puzzle in question was a New York Times puzzle. They often use archaic or poetic contractions when needs arise (e.g. “OER” for “over”, or “EEN” for even), but in fairness, they do try to indicate that: “Level, poetically,” might be EEN.
NYT puzzles are particularly challenging because they don’t tend to include things like “(2 words)” in the clues. Tense and number will always agree, so be aware of that: “Owns” might be HAS, while “Owned” might be HAD. Also, if there’s an acronym or initialism or abbreviation in the clue, there will likely be something similar in the answer: “Fighting grp.” might be USMC, for example, though it could be USAF, or even RCAF, depending on across or down answers. Heck, today I solved a puzzle where the clue was “United group,” and the answer?
AIRCREW
All words in the clue, and all words in the answer.
That’s the standard nowadays, at least for all the crosswords I do.
Fancy suspenders for men’s trousers are called braces.