Coming off the heels of Scott Van Pelt having an embarrassing and somewhat inappropriate interview with Howard Stern prankster Captain Janks, MSNBC has now followed suit with an interview with who they believed was USA Goalie and budding star, Ryan Miller.

There were a couple tells such as the callers voice and him mislabeling the opponent from today's game as "Russia", yet the prank caller was smooth enough to get through the call without blowing his cover. It was only later that MSNBC brought on the real Ryan Miller and apologized for the improper vetting of the previous caller. Below is video footage of the incident.

The incident may only add to Miller's new-found star power. Previous to the Olympics Miller was a well respected goalie, but buried in Buffalo of wasteland for mainstream notoriety. Miller's prolific net-minding for the Red, White, and Blue has extended his reach to a larger base of fans outside of hockey.  He now sits a win away from potentially entering the very small club of elite hockey players that star power cross over.  He'll have to earn it though as he'll have to defeat a loaded Canada team for the second time in a week, a task worthy of all the spoils that could come with a possible win.

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Game Thoughts

For fifty minutes, the Canadians held sway. Until Lubomir Visnovsky put them on the board, Slovakia showed little if any punch a condition that can be credited to Canada's talent. On offense, on defense, in net, Canada's superior personnel dominated the action and left the game Slovak squad little room to make plays.

Nothing provided Canada with a greater advantage than the physical play. Canada played the body more than they looked for the pretty passes and beautiful scoring bids. The physical play was responded in turn by Slovakia, but like all else in the contest, Canada had the advantage.

Their first goal by Visnovsky was more a product of a fortunate bounce on a good play than talent and skill overwhelming an opponent. Visnovsky tried to center the puck, but left it close to the post, close enough to sneak past Luongo. That was not enough to silence the chants of "We Want USA" coming from the hungry Canadian crowd. But when Michal Handzus potted the second Slovak goal, the dynamic of the game changed, radically.

Canada's tentativeness returned. Slovakia began winning more battles. They held the puck and made better passes. Putting their shots on net and playing for rebounds gave the Slovaks more opportunities in the final nine minutes than they had in the prior 51.

But Slovakia's furious finish was not enough to carry the day. They just ran out of time, and Canada escapes to a rematch with team USA in Sunday's Gold Medal game. But not without a serious gut check that held the fans silenced in the moments after the contest ended, before they renewed their chants of "We Want USA". They may discover that they should be careful what they wish for.

We'll be back live-blogging the Gold Medal game on Sunday.  We look forward to spending the game with you.

Scoring Summary

• 11:35 Lubomir Visnovsky
• 15:07 Michal Handzus from Richard Zednik and Miroslav Satan

Penalties

Shots

Joe Tetreault blogs about sports, culture, business/technology and current events at TetreaultVision in addition to being the Editor for Bloguin's Olympic Hockey Blog.

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Second Intermission Thoughts

With eight and a half minutes left, the Slovakian squad had a nice odd man stroll. It's difficult to call it a rush, because the sense of urgency with rushes was lacking. Jozef Stumpel tried to feather a pass to Ziggy Palffy. He hit the stick, but gave Palffy no chance to do much of anything with the puck. Eddie Olczyk raved about Sidney Crosby's defensive play, but watching Stumpel he just looked so tentative with the puck. That sequence summed up the period for Slovakia. The lack of crisp passing prevented them from sustaining any play in the Canadian zone.

Canada had no such difficulties. They moved the puck well, at one point putting eight shots on net without allowing Slovakia to get a shot on Roberto Luongo. Luongo has hardly been tested to this point seeing but nine shots in the first forty minutes. Much of that total was due to the flurry of good offensive play during the Slovakian man advantage.

The game's first infractions brought out Slovakia's fine special teams units. They moved the puck better on the power play and effectively shut down the lethal Canadian power play unit. But with just over three minutes left, trying to kill their second penalty, Canada broke through again as Ryan Getzlaf buried a backhand shot in the goal.

Time is running out on Slovakia's Cinderella story. They need to score quickly to begin the third, which is a tall order against the Canadians. They won't catch them if they can't muster more than the five shots on net they had in the second.

Scoring Summary

• 16:54 Ryan Getzlaf from Corey Perry and Chris Pronger

Penalties

• 1:29 Drew Doughty (hooking)
• 6:08 Zdeno Chara (roughing)
• 16:34 Richard Zednik (Holding the Stick)

Shots

Joe Tetreault blogs about sports, culture, business/technology and current events at TetreaultVision in addition to being the Editor for Bloguin's Olympic Hockey Blog.

Email Joe This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Follow TetreaultVision's Facebook page

Follow Bloguin's Olympic Hockey Blog Twitter