Miller's comments from the Glen

Here are Ryan Miller's comments from Watkins Glen International, where he was the grand marshal for Friday night's Grand-Am race.

"I’m excited to be here representing Steadfast Foundation, a foundation we started in Western New York to help childhood cancer. Meeting up with these former hockey players [Grand-Am's Nic Jonsson and NASCAR Nationwide Series' Michael Annett] is a lot of fun. Coming out to the race today is a big event – I have my family with me, my brother, my mom, my dad. My brother has some friends and I think he’s going to spend a little more time in the infield than me. Race day seems like a lot of fun – it’s been a while since I’ve gotten a chance to get to a race – I was at the Detroit Grand Prix a few years ago at Belle Isle.

"We brought some New Era caps – New Era is based in Buffalo and we do a lot of work with them – made up some special hats [featuring the Steadfast and Glen logos]. We started Steadfast a little over two years ago as inspiration for my cousin who had leukemia. Since then my cousin Matt has passed on and we’ve continued in his memory.

"We just do as much as we can as possible in Western New York. We do fundraising and awareness for childhood cancer. We try and draw people out with some fun events and some interesting opp like the chance to see me and some of my teammates in a different lights. We have a big party – which is going to be in November this year – we have live music, a quick fashion show, free food, free drinks. We use interesting vehicles to raise awareness in Western New York, and anything we raise in Western New York we’re pretty proud of the fact that we can give as much money back as possible. We feel like we have a good relationship with Roswell Park Cancer Institute ; so a lot of the money goes towards Carly’s Club – a great social group out and about in the community that gets them and gets them in social situations that they miss out on by being in treatment.

"We were approached 6-8 months ago [about appearing at the Glen], this has been in the works for a while. I thought it would be a great opportunity to see what Western New York has to offer in the summertime. I’ve slowly spent more and more time in Western New York and this will be my eighth season coming up, in the Rochester and Buffalo area. It’s a lot of fun to see what this place has to offer, there are so many great things about this area. And racing, I’m definitely a car guy – I’m really into that kind of stuff so I’m excited to see that different perspective.

"As far as training – you don’t stop: I took a week and a half, two weeks off -- really slacked off big time. But then then right back in the gym, right back to work. I’m counting this as a training break this weekend, because next week I have to go pretty hard building up to Olympic camp."

---Keith McShea

Comments

[Maverick]

It's enlightening to hear something positive to counteract the Kane debacle today.