Athlete Bios
Hockey
Miller backs U.S. Olympic team for first time
Last Updated: Monday, February 8, 2010 | 2:17 PM ET
New York Times for CBC Sports
Ryan Miller will be a key part of the United States hockey team's Olympic hopes in Vancouver. (Rick Stewart/Getty Images)Goalies have always been known as a thoughtful lot. They observe the game’s events from a slight remove behind their masks, like Ken Dryden meditating on the history of hockey between spurts of kicking shots aside.
So it should not come as a surprise when Ryan Miller mixed history and philosophy in his answer to a routine question about playing in the Olympics.
“When you grind out a season and shoot for the playoffs, which are the end-all, be-all, you forget what it’s like to play tournament hockey,” he said. “But when you’re a kid, the entire season is about the challenge cups and the tournaments. That’s kind of what hockey was originally — the Stanley Cup was a challenge cup, and it evolved into a professional sports season. Hockey has its roots in tournament, and it’s a lot of fun to get back to that.”
Miller was talking about the state of the Stanley Cup more than 100 years ago, something a lot of hockey writers are only dimly aware of, much less its top players.
But Miller is far from a typical goaltender. A member of the Buffalo Sabres organization since leaving Michigan State after his junior year in 2002, Miller has almost single-handedly put the modest Sabres near the top of the Eastern Conference standings while boasting the league’s best save percentage.
“Ryan Miller has been the best goalie in the National Hockey League this season,” Brian Burke, the general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs and of the United States Olympic team, said in December.
At six feet two and 170 pounds, Miller is along, lanky and lean — almost skeletally so. But he is also strong and durable, handling about three-quarters of the workload in the Buffalo nets the last four seasons.
Born in East Lansing, Mich., into a family that sent his grandfather, father, younger brother, uncle and five cousins to the Michigan State hockey team, Miller grew up with playing for the Spartans as his only goal. In his three collegiate seasons, he set an NCAA record with 26 shutouts, and in 2001 he became only the second goalie to win the Hobey Baker award as the nation’s top college player.
He was recovering from an injury in 2006 and was not selected for the United States Olympic team, an omission that many fans thought was ill advised. Not Miller: “Some people reacted like I got slighted or punched in the stomach or something,” he said. “But it was a business decision.”
But Miller has represented his country three times at the IIHF world championship, registering a tournament-best .949 save percentage in 2002.
