"Blue Jackets rookie Nikita Filatov said he does not tweet, has not tweeted and won't be tweeting anytime soon.

His online impersonator, however, was singing like a bird yesterday.

A person on the social networking site alleging to be Filatov apologized to the player and the organization for any trouble his Twitter posts had caused. The apology was made on the bogus account, which had 396 followers.

The "phony" Filatov exposed his prank less than a day after writing he was receiving a large contract offer from Russia's Continental Hockey League. The Jackets contacted Twitter yesterday to inform the site of the fraudulent activity.

"I had no idea about this site," Filatov said, laughing. "I didn't know what people were talking about. I didn't write that."

Filatov was concerned enough to send general manager Scott Howson a text professing his innocence.

Celebrity impersonation is nothing new on social networking sites. Winger Rick Nash has five Facebook pages, team spokesman Ryan Holtmann said, but none belongs to the team captain.

Holtmann knows that because one of his responsibilities is monitoring the sites to make sure nobody is writing inaccurate messages while posing as players.

A Twitter representative wrote in an e-mail: "Impersonation is against our terms of service unless it's parody. The standard for defining parody is, 'Would a reasonable person be aware that it's a joke?' "

The problem for sports organizations is that some athletes do use the social networking sites, but fans might be unable to distinguish pros tweeting from the locker room and imposters doing it.

Holtmann said between seven and 10 Blue Jackets players are authentic Facebook members. Defenseman Mike Commodore is the only one on Twitter."