WINTER OLYMPICS : Notebook : Hockey Coach’s Love Is Baseball

Tore Jobs, a Swede, is the assistant coach to the Norwegian Olympic hockey team, which played Team USA Friday night. But Jobs’ primary love is baseball, which is how he wound up working out at the California Angels’ minor league complex at Holtville, Calif., in the mid-1970s.

“I was a right-handed pitcher,” the genial Jobs said. “I think because I was from Sweden, they let me practice with them. Bobby Knoop was the manager.”

Jobs said he first started playing baseball in Sweden when he was 8. “My first coach was from Minneapolis,” he said.

Other coaches came to Sweden from Chapman College in Orange County, and Jobs accepted an invitation to visit in 1975. While at Chapman, he met Gary Lucas, the former Angel pitcher, and among his Holtville teammates was John Flannery, an infielder from Lakewood High School who wound up with the White Sox organization.

Angel coach Knoop, in Mesa, Ariz., for spring training, said he vaguely recalled Jobs.

But Bob Clear, an Angel instructor who was minor league coordinator at the time, remembered the Swedish pitcher.

“I don’t recall how good a player he was,” Clear said, “but I remember I liked the boy, and he liked to play. He was a fine young fellow.”

Leslie Flammini, secretary to Angel General Manager Mike Port, had a tongue-in-cheek suggestion. “Maybe I should send up a few contracts, in case there are some Swedes who can pitch,” she said with a laugh. “We could use them.”

Alan Eagleson, the executive director of the National Hockey League Players Assn., said there is a “90%” chance Soviet players will be in the NHL next season. Eagleson, who has been negotiating with Soviet officials, said the Soviets will submit a list of 10 players that will include “one or two good names.” NHL teams hold draft rights to a number of Soviet players, including the star defensemen of the national team, Viacheslav Fetisov and Aleksei Kasatonov, both of whom were drafted by New Jersey.

Soviet assistant coach Igor Dmitriev, asked if he could imagine both players departing, said: “To try and imagine that at this particular moment is, of course, very difficult. But life teaches us that as one group leaves, another group comes up. They may not be there immediately, but eventually they come up.”

Are there replacements for such as Fetisov and Kasatonov?

“There are such players,” Dmitriev said. “We wish there were more of them, but there aren’t.”

Dmitriev did imply that speculation regarding Fetisov and Kasatonov may be premature.

“As far as I’m aware, they’re still playing for the Soviet team,” he said. “If anything does happen in the future, it will be in the form of a trial balloon, and we will see if it brings benefits to Canadian and Soviet hockey--if it comes to pass at all.”

Later, he said: “The real key issue is how necessary the players are to us.”

By the 1992 Olympics, Fetisov will be 33 and Kasatonov 32, which may be why the Soviets could be willing to part with them. Also, the Soviet hockey federation undoubtedly will receive substantial compensation.

Bob Johnson, the executive director of the Amateur Hockey Assn. of the United States (AHAUS), added his voice to the chorus of those who say the Soviets aren’t what they used to be.

“They’re not playing with the great enthusiasm and confidence they once did,” said Johnson, the former coach of the Calgary Flames who coached against the Soviets in past Canada Cups. “Maybe they’re burned out, I guess.

“They seem to me more vulnerable now than ever before. Like if Edmonton lost Grant Fuhr, they’d be more vulnerable. They don’t have (Vladislav) Tretiak, they’ve lost their confidence.”

Pam Fletcher, who broke the fibula (small bone) in her right leg when she collided with a volunteer course worker while warming up Thursday morning, said she will not ski any more this season.

Asked if she would return to the U.S. Ski Team next winter, Fletcher said: “You bet. Vail is my mountain. Tell everyone to watch out.”

The 1989 World Alpine Ski Championships will be held at Vail, Colo., in late January and early February. Fletcher, who recently turned 25, won the World Cup downhill there in 1986 and finished third last year.

She watched the women’s downhill Friday from the finish area, on crutches. “The X-rays showed it was a clean break,” she said. “I’ll be off skis for at least six weeks.”

The World Cup season resumes March 5 and ends March 27.

The Alpine skiing schedule, shuffled by two postponements due to wind at Nakiska, now calls for the women’s combined downhill to be held today, if possible, with the men’s super-G set for Sunday morning, followed by the women’s combined slalom in the afternoon.

Alberto Tomba, Italy’s rising ski star, is due to make his first Olympic appearance in the super-G race.

Maria Walliser, who finished fourth in Friday’s women’s downhill, has her own fan club of about 150 members in Switzerland. Four of them, all male, made the trip to Calgary for the Olympics.

To set themselves apart, they dressed all in pink, and dyed their hair and painted their faces the same color.

Walliser hugged them while posing for pictures and called the foursome, “My bodyguards.”

In pink?

The coach of Soviet speed skater Nikolai Guliaev abruptly ended the 1,000-meter gold medalist’s post-race press conference when he apparently became upset at the line of questioning.

Boris Vasilkovsky crossed his hands in front of him in the shape of an X, rose from behind a table and abruptly left the room, taking Guliaev with him.

Guliaev, who won the 1,000-meter race Thursday night at the Olympic Oval, was cleared to compete in the Olympics only last week after the International Olympic Committee absolved him of involvement in a controversy over steroids.

Guliaev passed a package that later was found to contain steroids to Swedish speed skater Stein Krosby at a meet last month in Europe. Guliaev, who said he took the package from a Soviet team doctor, maintained his innocence. Both the Norwegian speed skater and the Russian trainer were removed from their teams.

But when he met the media after his 1,000-meter race, Guliaev faced more questions about the steroid incident. At first, he said the controversy hadn’t bothered him.

“I did not take it to my mind,” he said through an interpreter. “I thought it was some kind of provocation.”

When asked what kind, Guliaev said: “I don’t know exactly who made the scandal, but I just heard from rumors. Rumors from Swedish newspapers.”

The grim-faced Vasilkovsky sat nearby and seemed to grow more uncomfortable as the questioning continued. Finally, he had heard enough and he quickly ended the news conference.

An international group of 25 Special Olympians from six countries are spending five days watching the Winter Olympics.

Sunday morning, the Special Olympians will be at the Stampede Corral where they will meet with skating star Robin Cousins and then watch the ice dancing.

Times assistant sports editors Bob Lochner and Mike Kupper, and staff writer Thomas Bonk contributed to this story.