Between the Pipes

Some NHL goalies are great and others are intriguing, but a dozen of them are legends because they're both. In Between the Pipes, Randi Druzin profiles these athletes, revealing the traits that make each one unique.

Gump Worsley defied the laws of biomechanics by being nimble despite having a cabbage-shaped body. He was also one of the funniest men ever to start in goal. Glenn Hall used to wrestle with a trainer in the dressing room before games and Jacques Plante refused to stay at a particular Toronto hotel. Despite their quirks, these 12 goalies are among the best the game has ever seen. With wit and verve, Druzin paints unforgettable portraits of these masked mavericks.

Randi Druzin is an author and journalist. She has worked in print, broadcast and web journalism, on staff (National Post, CBC, Global News) and as a freelancer (New York Times, Time magazine, Globe and Mail, etc). Based first in Europe then in North America, Randi has covered events as diverse as former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s visit to Prague and the Van Halen reunion tour. Randi is the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Women in Sports, a book that traces the history of women's sports from antiquity to the present. She lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Roy MacGregor has spent a lifetime playing and writing about Hockey. In 2012 he was named the media inductee to the Hockey Hall of Fame and received the Elmer Ferguson Award for distinguished writing on the game. His acclaimed books on hockey include Home Team: Fathers, Sons and Hockey which was shortlisted for the Governor-General's Award for Literature, Home Game, written with Ken Dryden, and Wayne Gretzky's Ghost.

"This is a storyteller’s book, and as such it is also a reader’s book. You don’t have to be a goaltender to enjoy it; you just have to be a reader who loves words, loves sports and appreciates the sorts of insights that will never be found in 140 characters or less." -Roy MacGregor

"What this selection of goalies show is a wide range of personalities, from the super nice to the seemingly psychotic, but what they have in common is a love of the game, something that they obviously share with author Randi Druzin, who has written a great book about their lives. She has picked twelve of the best, and each profile is as winning as the player it portrays. You will wish there were more.” -Todd Simmons, SILive.com

"Between the Pipes takes a mesmerizing look back at the most brutal and demanding position in hockey and shines a light on the careers and lives of some of the goaltending greats, for better or for worse." -Adam Kozak, The Hockey News

"Between The Pipes makes for an entertaining read that will leave even the most knowledgeable fan learning something new." -Joe Pelletier, Hockey Books Reviews

"Druzin details each net-minder’s origin and career, and in so doing reveals the changing face of professional hockey in the last half century … Those unfamiliar with these grand figures will find this an engrossing read." -Publisher's Weekly

"Druzin covers legendary netminders such as Glenn Hall and Jacques Plante to contemporaries like Martin Brodeur, Dominik Hasek and Patrick Roy and found that while styles of stopping the puck may have changed over the decades, the facets that make someone a world-class goalie remain timeless.” -Bob Duff, The Windsor Star

"It’s a Hall of Fame caliber book filled with Hall of Fame goalies – a page-turner that will open your eyes to the human within these heroes. Twelve stories about twelve players, Druzin reveals to you their world away from hockey.” -Andrew Forbes, The Hockey Writers