WINTER OLYMPICS / NOTEBOOK

The last few months have been eventful ones for the Richter family of Madison, Wis.

First, son Barry made the Olympic hockey team. Then Pat, Barry’s father and the athletic director at the University of Wisconsin, watched as the Badger football team beat UCLA in the Rose Bowl.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” said Barry, a defenseman. “It’s all been great. I just hope all the great things that have been happening don’t stop happening now.”

Pat Richter is expected to arrive in Norway this weekend.

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Building the Olympic teams around NHL players, as is expected to happen in 1998, defeats the purpose of the Games, according to U.S. hockey Coach Tim Taylor.

“I like what we do here,” he said. “I like the process of taking a team and molding it and letting its character develop. Any success we achieve here in Lillehammer is going to be dependent on that chemistry. . . .

“I believe Olympic athletes should make a sacrifice, come in here having done everything he or she can to be the best athlete. That doesn’t happen when you just pull someone off an NHL team. Something’s lost.”

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Peter Laviolette, the captain and oldest player on the U.S. team at 29, will be playing in his second Games. Laviolette played for Dave Peterson at Calgary in 1988 and, after failing to win a medal there, felt something was missing from his hockey career.

“I came back because, after looking back over the years, I found myself thinking, especially after ’92 and how well they did, how disappointing it was to finish seventh in ‘88,” Laviolette said. “I was fortunate enough to have this chance once. To get a second crack at it, that’s great.”

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The U.S. players voted unanimously to participate in today’s opening ceremony, which has Taylor fretting. Festivities begin at 4 p.m., and the team is scheduled to skate at 8.

“I don’t want them to be on their feet for seven hours in the cold,” he said. “But the players feel they’d like to be there, like to be a part of it. It’s an Olympic experience and it’s motivational just to be there. Whatever detrimental effect the cold and standing up might have will be more than compensated by the (emotional) rush of it.”