Buffalo Sabres fake draft pick? The Story of Taro Tsujimoto

Buffalo Sabres fake draft pick? The Story of Taro Tsujimoto

[Music] I grew up in a small suburb of buffalo called Elma New York and my dad was a farmer he started out with a vegetable stand on Route 16 going in toward EAS aora he always had an interest in the Asian culture and the Asian Arts so then he expanded and built a new store and that was called tuim Modo I was toward the end of my college career and I was upstairs studying my dad sat at the bottom of the stairs and called me for dinner and he said hey I got a call from the Sabers and I go really I said what did they [Music] want the birth of the wh in 1972 was a threat to the NHL they were running around signing players and signing amateurs and they had signed before the NHL had a chance to so in 1974 the NHL led by president Clarence Campbell moved to protect its Turf the general manag decided to have a secret draft a set of meeting in Montreal and sitting around tables there would be phone calls to each team’s hockey Department this was not a conference call it was one call at a time the process was painfully slow you would hear Clarence cble then announced is Buffalo on the line who’s representing Buffalo George mlac you know that kind of stuff between picks teams had no idea who was being drafted so every time Campbell made a call he read and red each selection player by player he would give you all the names and announce them in this dry you know a lawyer tone so it got deadly boring the draft lumbered into its second day and as the 11th round neared Sab GM punch imlac and director of communications Paul weand were inspired to have some fun the time came and I was we’re sitting here and we’re getting comos practically and I don’t know what started it but I think it was imlac said the first thing we ought to draft someone that nobody knows about so then we all jumped all over it right yeah that’d be funny would if we drafted I what about a guy that doesn’t really exist Paul was the one who come up with the idea there’s no doubt in my mind about that and him like anything to disrupt the usual run of things in the NHL he was all for Paul would you know would nudge this towards punch and yeah Go With It Go With It yeah come on we’ll get those guys all up in arms it was Wheeland who suggested they make the player Japanese and he knew instantly what the last name would be where as a college student I drove down Route 16 to go from Buffalo to St Bonaventure and I would pass the tuamoto uh store and that name just stuck in my head but they needed a hand with character development so they picked up the phone and called Joshua Tu jimoto he said yeah they wanted to know uh what a a Japanese boy’s name was so he said Taro was a was a real popular boy’s name and then they asked him um what’s the Japanese word for Sabers and so he said katanas that’s the Japanese Samurai sword is a katana [Music] we thought boy this is going to be funny because he’s going to have to spell Taro to jimoto back 16 times so it came time and uh Buffalo ready yes George la here okay who does Buffalo [Music] select he goes Taro tuamoto and that was it and it was and we’re just like holding our you know covering our faces so we don’t laugh and that was it Campbell didn’t call them on it weand and imlac had slipped one past the league we didn’t swear secrecy but we just came out of there said we’re not telling anybody the owners thought we had a Japanese hockey player coming we never told them so it was that Taro tuim Modo of the Tokyo katanas snuck into the NHL record book come September his name was on the Sab training camp roster and the team even had a stall set up for him everybody was wondering about this tarot guy like you know who’s this who’s this tarot guy who’s this terot guy imlac kept up the ruse with reporters as well and he’s describing him he well we don’t have full-time Scouts in the Far East but we had we had this kid scouted and he looks like we hope he comes to camp and some writers actually bought it completely and say this guy’s training in the Himalayan Mountains he’s the fastest skater to ever live I said they might even forget about the French Connection so the media just jumped all over they thought it was the greatest thing going [Music] [Applause] on Taro never did arrive at training camp in 1974 but 40 years later his Legend lives on fans embraced Taro from the beginning even though the sabes wasted a Draft pick on a f player two players that were drafted after Taro Dave lumbley won two cups in Edmonton Stefan Pearson won four cups with the Islanders so I mean you think the sabr could have had two really good hockey players the 183rd pick in the 1974 draft was eventually ruled an invalid claim and Taro tuim Modo was erased from the books in spite of that he remains woven into the fabric of Buffalo’s history this is all part of it it’s chicken wings and beef on Wick and Tarot Tu jimoto and it’s all part of the Buffalo you know Mystique it’s kind of stupid when you think of how it started but it’s kind of fun that people have an anchor thing that goes way back into the 70s that they can smile about and that they feel an association with a player that didn’t even exist for

Happy 50th anniversary to the Buffalo Sabres and their (slightly insane) inside joke at the 1974 NHL draft that took the league months to unravel.

A TSN Original from James Duthie, originally produced for the 40th anniversary in 2014: The Man Who Never Was.