"I'm not going to lose touch with them," Krayer continued. "I'm going to come to every game. I'll be in the Garden [for the ECAA Championships.] And if they go to Detroit [for the NCAA finals], I'll get on a plane and go out there too."

Krayer doesn't know whether he'll be back next year. He'll give it some thought over the next couple of months and over the summer. If he does choose to come back for the fall semester next year, he'll play hockey.

"The most important thing is not the team,"Harvard Coach Bill Cleary said, "It's what's bestfor Eddie. I told him not to worry about the team.We'll plug away, doing our best."

"It's a long life," Cleary added. "A few years,a year, aren't going to matter. These thingshappen to a lot of people. A lot of people taketime off, not just athletes. Everyone needs sometime to get their act together. Eddie's doingwhat's best for him."

Ed Krayer is handsome and articulate. He'salso, as Harvard Captain Peter Chiarelli said, "alaid-back kind of guy." Easy to approach and talkto. Even after a loss.

Although he never was a big scorer for theCrimson, he did have shining moments. In thesecond game of the ECAC Semi-finals againstColgate last year, Krayer recorded a hat trick tolead the Crimson to a 6-4 victory.

This year, Krayer scored the Crimson's firstgoal of the season. Sadly, he won't be around toscore its last