THE OLYMPICS / WINTER GAMES AT ALBERTVILLE : U.S. Loses in Unified Roulette : Hockey: Former Soviets dominate, 5-2. Americans blast Swedish referee for third-period penalties.

When they won, they won in concert. And when they lost, the members of the U.S. Olympic hockey team complained in unison, too.

Charging that bias inspired by their edging Sweden out of the Group A championship prompted Swedish referee Sven Erik Sold to call five consecutive penalties against them Friday, U.S. captain Clark Donatelli led a losers’ lament that belittled the Unified Team’s formidable performance in its 5-2 semifinal playoff victory over the United States.

In an acrimonious ending to an impressive streak by the United States, which will play Czechoslovakia for the bronze medal tonight, Donatelli screamed at Sold as they strode off the ice, “You’re the only . . . Swede left in the tournament and you’re trying to stick it to us.”

Donatelli later said: “The team worked awful hard all year, and it’s a shame to let an official take it away in the third period. I don’t know who’s in charge of picking the refs, and I don’t know how they can let this happen. Five penalties in the third period. You can’t come back from that. The NHL All-Stars couldn’t do it.

“The Swedes got us. Their hockey team couldn’t beat us, but their ref surely did.”

U.S. Coach Dave Peterson declined to comment on the officiating, saying only, “I don’t think it was a coincidence we were assigned a Swedish official.”

Nor did he rebut Donatelli’s assertions.

“I’ve never put a muzzle on a player,” Peterson said. “Clark Donatelli’s done a great job for us as captain. Whatever he says, he believes.”

Four of the penalties called by Sold occurred in the third period, as the U.S. team scrambled to stay even at 2-2 despite being outshot, 30-11. (The final margin was 55-18). After negating five advantages gained by the Olympic tournament’s most potent power play, the Americans could hold off the Unified Team no more. They yielded the decisive goal at 10:55, when Andrei Khomutov slipped behind defenseman Guy Gosselin and banged the puck past goaltender Ray LeBlanc while Moe Mantha was in the penalty box for tripping Alexei Kovalev to prevent him from breaking in alone on the net.

In replays, the call appeared correct, but the U.S. players thought otherwise.

“I think Moe Mantha’s penalty was ridiculous,” Donatelli said. “You’ve got to be able to tell the difference between a dive and a trip.”

Most of his teammates joined him in condemning Sold.

“You come to the Olympics, and all the best teams are here. You’d think there’d be the best officials, too, but that’s not the case,” said defenseman Sean Hill, who tied the score, 1-1, at 12:09 of the first period. Reading the play well, he skated in deep on the right side and behind the net before coming around in front of Mikhail Shtalenkov and banging the puck off the skate of center Viacheslav Bykov. That matched a stoppable goal given up by LeBlanc on an unscreened 40-foot shot by Kovalev at 11:08.

“It’s pretty tough to come back and win a game in the third period when you have 10 minutes in penalties,” Hill said.

“The Soviets are a great team. We’re not ashamed to lose to them, but we’d rather have the loss be because we weren’t the better team. We had played exactly the way we wanted to in the first two periods. We couldn’t execute a game plan better than we did. Going 2-2 into the third period with the Soviets, that’s a good score.”

But the Unified Team, seeded second before the Games, took command in the final period.

After Khomutov had put the Unified Team ahead, Yuri Khmylev made it 4-2 at 14:08, snapping a wrist shot into the upper right corner of the net to cap a spectacular passing play begun by his linemates, Khomutov and Bykov.

Evgeni Davydov applied the finishing touch with another power-play goal while Scott Young sat out a high-sticking penalty, sending the heirs to the Soviet Union’s Olympic hockey dynasty to the final Sunday against Canada, a 4-2 winner over Czechoslovakia.

The Soviets won seven of the previous nine gold medals, a streak interrupted by the United States in 1960 at Squaw Valley and in 1980 at Lake Placid.

“I think the American players were tired,” said Bykov, whose line seemed to own the puck. “That’s why they were holding and hooking, because of fatigue. We were never worried when it was 2-2. We controlled the play.”

The officials for the semifinal and final games were chosen Tuesday by the referees’ committee of the International Ice Hockey Federation.

Larry Johnson, the U.S. team’s general manager, said he would investigate avenues to complain about Sold’s work.

Forward Jim Johannson, however, said that a more equitable balance in the penalty calls might not have made a difference.

“(Sold) became a factor in the game, but who knows if we could have won the game without so many penalties?” he said. “They played very well. The Russians are a deserving team. After the fourth goal, I knew we were down to nothing.”

Now they are down to their final game.

“This is the only thing we can do,” Johannson said. “Our goal was to win the gold medal. . . . We’ve played too long to hang our heads after one loss. (Today) is essentially our biggest game.”