Bode Miller was low key, even by his relaxed standards.

So far so good.

The man still insists on doing things his way, and Thursday’s announcement was no different. He said he was rejoining the U.S. Ski Team in time to take a shot at qualifying for the Winter Olympics. And if this experiment in male bonding happens to end with a trip to Vancouver, well – Miller added with his usual detachment – so be it.

“It wasn’t a huge motivation in this decision,” he said at a news conference in Los Angeles. “There’s a lot of stuff that goes on between now and then. My primary motivation was just to be back and ski racing again and to have the opportunity to be a part of a team I haven’t been in the past.”

Yet Miller acknowledged he didn’t return a call from U.S. men’s Alpine coach Sasha Rearick about that very possibility for several months, while he enjoyed a self-imposed exile and quality time with his baby daughter. He also conceded he’s not in shape to compete at the moment and probably won’t be until the World Cup circuit stops in Beaver Creek, Colo., in early December – the fourth race of the season and not even two months before the U.S. Olympic team will be named on Jan. 26.

“Coming into the season in not the best shape is kind of a scary proposition, but I think we are ready to make a real positive move,” he said.

Miller has never been interested in other people’s expectations, and anybody who wanted to hear about his burning desire for a shot at redemption was always going to be disappointed. That left it to the U.S. Ski Team officials who pursued him to explain what they hoped to get from Miller. One by one, they dutifully stepped up to the plate.

“I look forward to Bode being a positive team member and leader,” Rearick said.

“I was pleased that Bode reached out to me earlier this week to express his commitment to upholding the Olympic ideals of sportsmanship, integrity and hard work in his quest to join the 2010 U.S. Olympic Team,” USOC chairman Larry Probst said.

“His commitment to making the U.S. Ski Team better, provides nothing but excitement and opportunity,” concurred USOC winter sports team leader Alan Ashley.

The USOC already has signed off on Miller’s plan to travel and stay in his RV – as opposed to the team accommodations – so it’s anybody’s guess how much of the team-building business they actually believe. But they know this much to be true: When he’s on, Miller is still the best skier on the planet.

He proved that by coming back from the debacle in Turin to win a second World Cup overall title in the 2007-08 season. Miller turns 32 in a month, but on a men’s squad with one solid medal chance — Ted Ligety, who won the only U.S. men’s skiing gold at Turin — and a lot of veterans with very limited chances at making the podium, he represents a risk well worth taking. And the longer the odds get, the more you should like his chances.

There’s little to be gained by revisiting what happened to Miller in Turin, except for this: I was the only reporter he wound up talking to and during the same interview where Miller sealed his fate with a single quote — “I got to party and socialize at an Olympic level” — he told a much more revealing story.

Contrary to all the accounts, real and imagined, about Miller closing down the saloons in Sestriere every night, he stayed in to watch a movie the evening before his fifth and final event. It was “Miracle,” the story about a collection of college hockey players who came together in 1980 beat the Soviet Union’s season pros — the real “Big Red Machine” — en route to a gold medal.

“That’s what the Olympics are about,” he said, “underdogs, about providing an opportunity for people to do something they didn’t know they were capable of.”

Miller then talked almost longingly about how U.S. teammates Ligety and Julia Mancuso, both just 21 at the time, arrived under the radar and were each going home with a gold medal. It reminded him of what happened in Salt Lake City four years earlier, when he sneaked in and won two silvers.

“I wanted an Olympic experience like in ‘Miracle.’ But how was it for the Russians?” Miller said, leaving little doubt which role he’d been cast in. “Horrible.”

Of course, no one forced Miller to take those endorsements and interviews the last time around. This time, it won’t be an option. Something tells me that’s exactly the way he wants it.

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