The voice was a poor imitation of Ryan Miller. The words were even worse. MSNBC, however,

thought it was the real deal.

The cable channel and host Willie Geist believed they had the Buffalo Sabres' goaltender on

the phone Friday night to chat about Team USA's appearance in the Olympic gold-medal game. It

was not Miller.

"We were the victims of a prank," Geist said later Friday when he returned with an update

during the station's "Hardball with Chris Matthews" show. "Luckily, we have the real Ryan

Miller.

"First and foremost, Ryan, please accept our apology. It's a mistake that never should have

happened. We misrepresented your name, and we regret it deeply. I personally feel terrible

about it."

Miller took the mistake in stride, but he had to do damage control. The fake Miller was

boastful and predicted a victory over Canada in today's final.

"We think we should, you know, kind of bring the gold back home to the good USA," the

prankster told MSNBC. "We're almost as confident to guarantee victory in the gold-medal game."

Miller knows such words would create a media storm in Vancouver.

"I appreciate a good prank," Miller told the station by phone, "but I do try to keep my

reputation intact here. Up here in the Olympics, especially in Canada, everybody's taking

things very personally, so I just want to clear up that I wouldn't be guaranteeing a gold

medal. I look forward to a great game to compete for a gold medal, though.

"I just wanted to clear things up. I got a few messages from friends, and a lot of

different PR staff on different NHL teams are getting ahold of people asking if I've really

become that different and that cocky because of this. I assure you I'm not that kind of a

person. Anybody who knows me knows that I'm pretty laid-back, pretty quiet and I just enjoy

playing the game."

Said Geist: "I thought it sounded fishy at the time, and I'm sorry I didn't stop it sooner

than we did. The real Ryan Miller, thank you so much for being so gracious, and again please

accept our apology."