In 1981, a good thing happened to a bad team. Harvard won the Beanpot.

A great thing happened to a good goalie. Wade Lau shut down Boston College, 2-0, and won the Beanpot MVP award.

Eight years later, Wade Lau remembers how nervous he was.

"My most prominent memory is when David Burke scored with 1:55 left in the game," says Lau, who works for a commercial real estate firm in Minneapolis, Minn. "Until that point, it was nothing but walking on eggshells. It was nothing but nervousness."

Harvard shocked Northeastern, the fourth-ranked team in the country, 10-2, in the first round of the 'Pot. But no one expected much from the Crimson, which boasted a meager 7-11 record, in the final.

Of course, no one expected Lau to come up with the game of his life. Lau, a junior, recorded 15 saves and posted his first career shutout.

A big win?

"The win was the biggest win that the program had in five years," Lau says. "It was the turning point."

Miserable

Lau and his teammates had seen some bad seasons. No, not bad. Miserable.

"It was a big game in every sense of the word," Lau says. "My freshman year we had the worst record in Harvard hockey history [7-18-1]. In my sophomore year we had 10 freshmen on the team [and finished 8-15-3]. This was the biggest game we ever played in--period."

Harvard's Beanpot triumph was a foretaste of things to come. The Crimson finished with a 13-15-2 record the following season. And in 1982-83, Harvard posted a 23-9-2 mark, won the ECAC championship and advanced to the finals of the NCAA Tournament.

Harvard has participated in the NCAA Tournament six of the last seven years.

"We got a good taste of winning, a good taste of success," Lau says. "It really set us up for a good season the next year and a great season the following year."

But it did not propel the Crimson to more Beanpot victories. Harvard did not advance beyond the first round of the 'Pot until this year.

Why Harvard's Beanpot woes?

"One of the reasons has to be flat out bad luck," Lau says.

Another, Lau hints, might be Harvard's recent ascent into a national powerhouse. A Beanpot championship is nice. But an ECAC or NCAA trophy is even better.

"My sense of it is that the Beanpot's not quite the same for these guys as it was for us," Lau says. "These guys have been to the Final Four. Not that they don't like the Beanpot, but they've got a lot of work left to do after it's over."

"For us," he adds, "a win in the Beanpot made the season. For them, the Beanpot fits in the context of a much greater scene."