In hockey, goalies have always been a contradiction -- solitary men in a
team game, the last line of defence and the stalwarts expected to save
the day after any and every miscue and collapse from his teammates. It's
no wonder that anyone who played the position has had his sanity
questioned; yet some of the biggest innovations in the game have come
from its puckstoppers. In The Goaltenders' Union, Greg Oliver and
Richard Kamchen talk to more than 60 keepers of yesterday and today,
finding common threads to their stories, and in dozens of interviews
about them with other coaches and players. From Gilles "Gratoony the
Loony" Gratton, who refused to play because the moon was out of
alignment with Jupiter, to Jonathan Quick, the athletically gifted
master keeper of today's game, the book is an entertaining and
enlightening peek behind the mask.