A lot of Hockey buzz resonating in beautiful Buffalo, NY this morning as the Buffalo Sabres ramped up their “Return to Royal” event by revealing their much anticipated royal blue and gold jerseys this morning.
Sabres’ fans haven’t had a real reason to have any excitement around this team outside of the draft lottery (yay to 8th overall?) in a while. The last few months, organizationally, have been a shit show. So what better bandage to throw on the festering wounds of complete organizational unrest then unveiling the jersey we has been begging for!? I mean, I for one got excited for these new threads. First time Sabres have excited me in a while outside of MSG replays of the mid-2000s. Our retro royal blue and golds are easily some of my favorite jerseys in all of Hockey (sure, I’m a homer…but REALLY) and these embody that nostalgia we, as a fan base, have been clamoring for almost perfectly.
I thought this was a nice setup to start my new series of stories about Lore in Buffalo sports…hence the super creative name “BuffaLore”. There’s a lot of cool, and obscure, stories in Buffalo sports’ past that don’t get talked about enough.
Kicking off this series, there is no better story than to talk about the greatest Buffalo Sabre that never was…Taro Tsujimoto.
A lot of tried-and-true Sabres’ fans know of Tsujimoto’s story, but a lot of newer generation fans like me had never heard of Taro and his selection by Buffalo GM, George “Punch” Imlach, in the 1974 NHL draft’s 11th round.
It all started during the 1974 NHL amateur draft, which was held via conference call, and Sabre’s GM Punch Imlach. After hours and hours of painstaking and drawn out drafting via conference call, Punch was getting fed up. I would be too, although there were only 18 teams drafting, there were 25 rounds in which players were drafted…a little unnecessary if you ask me. So, in the 11th round of that draft, the Buffalo Sabres selected Taro Tsujimoto, Center, from the “Tokyo Katanas”.
When the NHL president at the time Clarence Campbell announced the pick, Imlach and the Sabres were met with some laughter but no one really questioned the selection at all, even though TARO TSUJIMOTO WAS NOT EVEN A REAL PERSON.
WHAT???
If you’re unfamiliar with this story, you wonder how Imlach pulled this stunt off. This was an all-time farce. I like to mess around with my superiors too, but convincing the Hockey world you drafted a player who didn’t exist was next level trolling by Imlach. But to those outside the Sabres, they didn’t catch on. Teams at that time were constantly trying to an edge when it came to scouting, as the talent pool in the Soviet Union was off-limits, so it wasn’t too far fetched to think a team would scout in Japan.
The League and media went on believing this was a real selection, being printed in every media guide, record book and news article across the NHL. When asked when Tsujimoto would be joining the team to begin his career, Imlach would pull his best George R.R. Martin and say “He’s coming!” It wasn’t until right before training camp was about to start that he admitted to the world that it was all just an elaborate joke.
I tip my cap to you Punch Imlach, still stands as one of the greatest troll jobs throughout all of sport’s history and to be honest, I feel like it’s just not talked about enough. Maybe because it’s embarrassing to the league but it’s still funny, super interesting and a very real part of Buffalo and Hockey history.
So how the hell did Imlach actually pull this off?
First off, the draft used to be completely closed off to the media and fans. Just the NHL president, some league officials and team GMs all would meet at one spot and then conduct the draft via a conference call. This helped make it a fairly private event, without people there to question things as they happened.
Imlach then had the Sabres’ PR Director Paul Wieland create a fictional player for him to draft. They agreed they wanted the player to be Asian, as the lack of scouting there would help avoid suspicions. Wieland, as a college student, used to commute from Buffalo to St. Bonaventure and pass the Tsujimoto store consistently so he knew that would be the last name.
Next, Imlach approached a Sabres’ staffer at the time, Joshua Tsujimoto, to ask both what were popular male names in Japan and to use his family’s name. Joshua Tsujimoto granted him permission even though Imlach wouldn’t tell him what his intentions were.
And that’s how they landed with the name, Taro Tsujimoto.
In 1974 there were no Tokyo based teams in the Japan Ice Hockey League, so Imlach made one up (this guy just didn’t give a shit) and called them the “Katanas” which paid homage to the swords design of the “Sabres”.
Punch Imlach is now one of my favorite figures in Sabres’ history. Legendary move to pull on the whole league and the guy still took All-Star talents in the same draft like blue and gold legend Danny Gare and Lee Fogolin.
There ya have it.
How the best that never was, Center, Taro Tsujimoto came to be and now how he’s stuffed away in the crevices of Buffalo sport history. Although many records have wiped away that 183rd pick ever existed, we will never forget you Taro.
