Salt Lake City

The state's newest citizens will be wearing the Olympic rings as they venture into the world. Intermountain Health Care, which operates 18 hospitals in Utah with maternity services, is giving parents baby blankets. Spokesman Daron Cowley said hospital staff sat down a year ago to think of ways to make the Winter Games "a fun event for our patients." "It's an exciting time to have a child, and during the Olympics just adds to the excitement," he said. The off-white blankets bear the Olympic and Paralympic logos and will be issued to parents having babies today through Feb. 24 and March 7-16 for the Paralympics.

Clyde Lee Conrad, 50, a former Army sergeant convicted of treason in 1990 for leaking NATO and American secrets to the former Soviet bloc, died in prison in Koblenz, Germany, where he was serving a life sentence. Prosecutors in Koblenz confirmed yesterday that he died Thursday, apparently of heart failure. An autopsy has been ordered. Sergeant Conrad was convicted in 1990 of masterminding an espionage ring that sold highly sensitive information to Hungarian and Czechoslovakian DTC intelligence agents from 1975 through 1985, when he retired after 20 years in the military.

The MTV generation is alive and well in Utah, mostly in the form of sassy teen-agers who wait in line to take turns singing on a tiny stage to the latest pop tunes from Total Request Live. At night, a star-studded lineup of performers - including Macy Gray, Barenaked Ladies, Train, Nelly Furtado, Goo Goo Dolls and Creed - has gyrated well past curfew, but despite Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson's best efforts, the events were forced to remain alcohol-free because they're on Mormon church property.

NBC...........4-5 p.m....................Snowboarding ...................8-11:30 p.m............Figure skating, men's hockey, luge, snowboarding, nordic ....................................................combined ..................12:05- 1:35 a.m..........Olympic late night, men's hockey MSNBC.....1-6 p.m..................Men's hockey, cross-country skiing, curling CNBC.......6 p.m.-1 a.m..................Men's hockey What to watch: The U.S. men's hockey team makes its debut against Finland, and with a strong showing early in the games, Team USA might finally put to bed all the talk of smashed hotel rooms and a lackluster sixth-place finish in Nagano in 1998.

You can blast down the mountain where Picabo Street will go for the Olympic gold or twirl on the ice where Michelle Kwan hopes to dazzle the ice-skating judges.Maybe. If everything goes as planned and if you happen to go to Salt Lake City.For the second time in four years, Salt Lake City is holding its collective breath, hoping that the 94 demigods of the International Olympic Committee decide Utah's capital city will be the center of the 2002 Winter Games."We're feeling good, really good, about our chances," said Robert Hunter, spokesman for the local organizing committee.