"Deep down, back in your mind, when you've been successful at the level I've been--a Division I goaltender--you have to have thought of it," Lau says. "Let's put it this way: if I have a great second half like last year, and the right people are watching and offer me a spot playing in the right place, I'd love to do it. But I don't want to play just to keep playing; when it comes time to hang up the skate, you have to hand them up."
As the weeks of Lau's college hockey career wind down, the numbers pile up. He enters tonight's game, for example, with 1811 saves, just 110 behind Harvard record-holder Bruce Durno. He has played almost 4000 minutes in the nets for the Crimson despite missing two months of his freshman season with a knee injury and four more games after getting hurt last year. He also has a chance of becoming the first Harvard player to win back-to-back Beanpot MVPs.
But none of this--not even the Beanpot--is uppermost in Wade Lau's mind right now. "This might surprise a lot of people," he says, "but it I had to pick two games for us to win this week it would be Brown and Yale, not the Beanpot games."
Despite a 5-7-1 ECAC record with just eight league games left. Lau sees a real playoff possibility for the Crimson and, more than any other, playing in a playoff game is an honor Lau would like to enjoy.
"This year's team has enough experienced talent to come back," he says "It's definitely the closest knit team we've had since I've been here, and that will help, too."
And so will having Lau healthy for the stretch run. He has played every minute of every ECAC game for Harvard this season, except for the tail-end of the season-opening 11-1, trouncing of Dartmouth, and the knee injury that felled him in practice the day before the squad left for Princeton last February has completely healed.
It would be fitting for Lau, who has played well and often gloriously during the had days, to go out a winner Last year's seniors were the first in Harvard hockey history who played on a losing team for four years, and Lau, Watson, and the rest of the class of '82 are in danger of becoming the second.
"I would gladly trade last year's Beanpot games for playoff games." Lau says, referring again to the number-one goal of his Harvard hockey career. "Last year, the Beanpot made our season. This year, I hope it doesn't."