Winter Games

Pennsylvania's fall hunting seasons have come and gone. But the winter seasons have just begun, giving hunters additional chances to pursue deer, small game, upland birds and waterfowl. Most of the late seasons opened on Monday, but their closing dates vary. Deer: The late seasons for people who wish to hunt deer with flintlock muzzleloaders and bows and arrows will continue through Jan. 14. The Pennsylvania Game Commission reminds hunters that they must have a flintlock or archery stamp if they wish to take part in these seasons.

SOCHI, Russia - The frenzy of construction for the Winter Games enveloping this city has local people feeling as if the Greek gods of old were flinging one Olympian thunderbolt after another at them as they helplessly endure. President Vladimir V. Putin wants to turn Sochi, a threadbare resort on the Black Sea, into a polished Russian jewel, an up-to-the-minute, year-round, snow-and-sun resort drawing tourists long after next year's Olympics have moved on. Construction roars along 24 hours a day, leaving some residents dazed in this city of 345,000.

Jim Lampley will host Turner Network Television's coverage of the 1998 Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan. Lampley's appearance will be the ninth time he's reported or hosted an Olympics. He's also covered the international event for CBS and ABC. He has worked for HBO Sports since 1988. Turner acquired exclusive cable broadcasting rights to the 1998 Winter Olympics in an agreement with U.S. rights-holder CBS. CBS, a unit of Westinghouse Electric Corp., paid $375 million for the entire package.

New York state and the province of Quebec have agreed to work on a joint bid to host a Winter Olympics. New York Gov. George Pataki announced the agreement yesterday to a joint session of the state Legislature. Which Olympics New York and Quebec will try to attract has yet to be determined. Venues around Lake Placid, site of the 1932 and '80 Winter Games, would be used, as would those near Montreal, officials said. Lake Placid and Montreal are about 140 miles apart. New York City is the United States' official candidate to host the 2012 Summer Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee decided by an overwhelming majority yesterday to separate the years of Summer and Winter Olympic Games, beginning in 1994. The vote was approved by 78 of the 85 IOC members taking part in the vote. Only two members opposed the change, and five abstained. The change will spread out the heavy organizational load that the IOC has carried every four years. But perhaps most important in the minds of IOC members was the probability that Winter Games held in separate years would command more money from publicity and television rights.

CBS won the rights to televise the 1992 Winter Olympic Games yesterday - in part because ABC chose not to bid on a sports event it has long monopolized. CBS (on Channel 10 here) captured the 1992 Games in Albertville, France, with a winning bid of $243 million, easily topping an offer of $175 million from NBC. The winning bid was $66 million less than the $309 million ABC paid for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada. Two reasons caused the drop-off, which was the first decrease in history for Winter Olympics TV rights.

Mario Lemieux is still on the mend and isn't ready yet to return to the Pittsburgh Penguins. That doesn't mean the Olympics are out. According to a source close to Lemieux who spoke yesterday on condition of anonymity, the Penguins' star is expected to reaffirm his intention of playing in the Olympics for Canada in Salt Lake City once he returns to practice, even though a hip injury and Oct. 29 hip surgery has sidelined him for all but three of...

Greg Gumbel has been paging through winter clothing catalogs lately. Not for Christmas gifts. He's bulking up his winter warbrobe for February 1994. CBS Sports yesterday named Gumbel, host of "The NFL Today," as the prime- time host for its Winter Olympics coverage from Lillehammer, Norway. Before Gumbel begins focusing on skiing, skating and the luge, baseball will be on his mind. He also will be replacing Dick Stockton as the play-by- play man on CBS baseball broadcasts next season.

The Winter Olympics always have had a bit of an image problem. Tradition is part of it. The ancient Greeks, alas, didn't luge. The Winter Games were a 1924 spinoff of the big show and, quite naturally, it has taken time for them to approach anything close to equal stature. Popular heroes have emerged from the snow-and-ice wars, of course - Sonja Henie, Jean-Claude Killy, Eric Heiden - and a lot of people still rank the U.S. hockey team's 1980 gold medal performance among the greatest accomplishments in the history of sports.

Building cranes, once as plentiful as buffalo here and recently just as close to being extinct, are returning to the skyline. Oil prices have crept back to close to $20 a barrel. Unemployment, which reached a high of 15 percent, is now under 10. Houses might soon be worth what people paid for them five years ago. And last week, it really became official that Calgary, a boom town gone bust, is bouncing back. Construction workers seeking higher wages walked off their jobs. As the 1988 Winter Olympics draw closer, this city of 640,000 is growing in self-esteem.