‘94 WINTER OLYMPICS / LILLEHAMMER : Young U.S. Team Looking for Gold : Hockey: Though seeded sixth, the Americans are confident. Quest begins today against France.

Its exuberance tempered but not extinguished by six months and 61 games of preparation, the U.S. Olympic hockey team begins its gold-medal mission today against France.

“This is something I’ve been dreaming about since I was 8 years old,” said Craig Johnson, the left wing for Todd Marchant and Peter Ferraro on the team’s top-scoring line. “I think we’re really prepared, and we have some real confidence going in.”

Although no U.S. team has won the Olympics in a foreign country--the 1960 team won at Squaw Valley, Calif., and the stunning 1980 victory was accomplished at Lake Placid, N.Y.--there is reason for U.S. high hopes.

“I strongly believe we have a chance for a medal, and I’m not just speaking hopefully,” said center Peter Ciavaglia, who joined the team 10 days ago after playing in the Swedish Elite League. “We’re shooting for gold. I can’t say that if we won a bronze we’d be unhappy, but right now we wouldn’t trade a guaranteed bronze for the chance we have.”

The U.S. team is seeded sixth in the 12-team field, well above the 10th-seeded French team. However, the United States and France played a 4-4 tie on Feb. 5 in Rouen, France, a game in which the United States squandered a 3-1 lead.

Too little discipline by the U.S. team, and it will struggle as it did in Rouen, where only a late goal by Peter Ferraro averted an embarrassing defeat. Too many mistakes by goaltender Mike Dunham, who has stopped 64 of 68 shots in his last two games after giving up 35 goals in a five-game stretch, and the offense will be under pressure. Too much offensive pressure, and the defense, the team’s most vulnerable element, will be thrown off.

“The first five minutes of the first game of the entire Olympics, with a young team like we have, this one game could be the catalyst to send us toward a medal,” Ciavaglia said. “People are going to have question marks about us after that. We learned we can’t lose our patience against teams like Sweden and France. If we have to chip it off the boards, dump it in, we will. We’ve been burnt before and gotten frustrated, and we can’t let that happen again. We’ve got to keep attacking, but be smart and not force the attack.”

Coach Tim Taylor is concerned about his team maintaining its concentration if it has a slow start or is victimized by an unfortunate bounce.

“Our players are young,” he said. “We can’t change that. We can only make them play more maturely and with as much poise as possible. Discipline is the area we’ve made the most progress in and it’s the area we have the longest to go. These kids were all like street fighters when we started. They’ve got to be patient and not take retaliatory penalties, but stand up and support each other.

“The essence of our game plan is to not get frustrated with their defensive play. You have to get good goaltending, and you have to be patient defensively. It’s not a situation where you can count on offense to win.”

Taylor juggled his line combinations through last Wednesday’s pre-Olympic finale. The offense will be sparked by the Marchant line and the line of late arrivals Ciavaglia and Ted Drury (Calgary Flames) flanking center Brian Rolston.

“We’re at a point where we feel we have four very solid lines,” Taylor said. “I think that’s our best approach--four lines with short and hard shifts.”

That and solid goaltending. Dunham, who admitted he had never felt so discouraged as he did during his slump, has regained the assurance that deserted him in December and January.

“I lost some sleep, but right now I’m ready to go,” he said. “(Today’s game) is just another hockey game, and I’m going to have a lot of other big hockey games in my career after this. . . . We’ve played so many games, we know each other’s ins and outs. There’s no question we’re ready and we’re confident with each other.”