Unified Team

* If you've ever wondered what those rugged hockey players look like under all that padding, you should have been in Courchevel yesterday.The French hockey players stripped teammate Fabric Lhenry naked, tied him to a chair and pushed him across the rink.A few volunteer Olympic workers witnessed the scene and one of them managed to preserve the moment on film."It only lasted a few seconds," a spokesman for the Courchevel rink said today."Such things happen fairly often, but usually there's nobody to see it."

LA TANIA, France -- The U.S. hockey team did not bang a single body yesterday. Instead, while the players and coaching staff waited for the Unified Team to torment Finland at the Olympic ice rink, the Americans took a unified walk through the snow-capped Alps.They inhaled the breeze and were one with the mountain. The touchy-feely guide was coach Dave Peterson, Big Daddy himself."That's been what Clark Donatelli has called me for a while," Peterson said. "Behind my back the players probably call me something a lot worse.

Top-seeded Sweden out; Czechs winVictors earn spot in hockey final fourMERIBEL, France -- Czechoslovakia filled out the Olympic hockey semifinal field yesterday, as Otakar Janecky broke a 1-1 tie with 6 minutes, 55 seconds left in a 3-1 victory over previously unbeaten Sweden."

MERIBEL, France -- The grudge match is called on account of TTC politics, but the matchup remains electric: The United States against the Unified Team, which used to be the Soviet Union, in the semifinals of the Olympic hockey tournament.That it will happen tomorrow was assured yesterday when the Unified Team easily defeated Finland, 6-1, in a medal-round quarterfinal game broken open by three second-period goals."I don't care what they're called now, they're still the Russian hockey team," said forward Marty McInnis of the unbeaten U.S. team.

ALBERTVILLE, France -- There is no joy in Albertville.Dan Jansen struck out again, finishing 26th of 46 starters in yesterday's 1,000 meters.And U.S. men almost certainly will be shut out of the speed skating medals for the fourth time in 16 Winter Olympics.With only the men's 10,000 meters yet to skate, the U.S. performance here can be summed up as the fair, the bad and the ugly.The glitter from Bonnie Blair's two gold medals obviously cast no reflection on her teammates. In 31 other race starts, there were only two top-10 finishes, a fourth by Jansen in the 500 and a sixth by Eric Flaim in the 5,000.

* A WYLIE SORT OF GUY: Last Saturday night, Paul Wylie surprisingly won the Olympic silver medal in men's figure skating. His life has not been the same since.The skating ended about 10:30 p.m. The medals ceremony and a news conference kept him occupied past midnight. Then he, his parents, his girlfriend and his sponsor commandeered a bistro here and celebrated until 3:45 a.m.Television people from CBS took him back to the International Broadcast Center in Moutiers, showed him tapes of his exciting 4 1/2 -minute freestyle program, put him on a late-night television wrap-up (it was 5:15 a.m. in Albertville)

ALBERTVILLE, France -- You can buy a CCCP jacket right off the back of an Olympic athlete. One hundred fifty dollars American.No problem.You can buy an athlete's pin, the one with the old hammer-and-sickle on it. A real collector's item. Fifty dollars.No problem.You can even buy into a fledgling professional hockey league in the former Soviet Union. All offers considered. Price negotiable.Definitely, no problem.This isn't a team, anymore -- it's a going-out-of-business sale.These are the final days of the Soviet sports machine.

MERIBEL, France -- Canada's third-period comeback againstthe Unified Team didn't win the game. It earned something more valuable -- the top spot in its group.The former Soviet Union, which needed to win by three goals to overtake the Canadians, pulled out a 5-4 victory yesterday in one of the most intense games of the tournament.In its opening medal-round game tomorrow, Canada will play the easiest competition from the other group, probably Germany or Italy. The Unified Team, which finished second, and Czechoslovakia, the third-place team, will face stiffer competition.