Remembering That Time An NHL Team Drafted Taro Tsujimoto, A Player Who Didn't Even Exist
The world was an extremely different place in the year 1974. People were calling for the impeachment of the President of the United States, a team from Philadelphia were crowned as champions for the first time (the Flyers men’s professional ice hockey team), and it was a World Cup year. Alright so maybe things weren’t that different. But the biggest difference between 1974 and 2018 was the way in which the NHL Draft operates. As you all know, the NHL Draft these days is a spectacle. It is held in NHL arenas where fans can either way the draft happen live in person or you can watch every pick made on television. That wasn’t the case in 1974. Back then, the NHL would either hold the draft in some random hotel with just the general managers present, or they wouldn’t even host a draft at all–they’d just have everybody call in to a conference call and go through every round via phone. Could you imagine that shit? Just having to sit there on the phone while one-by-one these shitty teams keep making their shitty picks through at least 9 rounds? Just text me that shit, I don’t want to sit there having to hold a damn phone up to my ear for hours.
So as you could imagine, the draft process sucked ass and was super boring and everybody wanted to blow their brains out. That’s where ol’ George “Punch” Imlach comes in to play here. At the time, Punch Imlach was the head coach and general manager of the Buffalo Sabres. He was already a legendary coach by that point after winning 4 Cups with the Toronto Maple Leafs. So Punch Imlach decided enough was enough with the boring ass draft process, and he decided to have a little fun with it. So with the 183rd pick in the ELEVENTH round of the 1974 NHL Entry Draft, Punch Imlach drafted Taro Tsujimoto of the Tokyo Katanas out of Japan.
The only thing…
…well the Tokyo Katanas weren’t a real team and Taro Tsujimoto wasn’t a real dude. Punch Imlach was just bored out of his mind, most likely drunk off his ass, and decided he was going to fuck around with the 11th round of the 1974 NHL Draft because who gives a shit about the 11th round. And it’s not like in 1974 anybody could just whip out their phone and Google Taro Tsujimoto to bring up his HockeyDB page. And nobody knew shit about any Japanese hockey leagues or anything so it’s not like there were any scouts who were there to say anything. So the league just went along with it and the pick was official.
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And now 44 years later after selecting Taro Tsujimoto with the 183rd pick in the 1974 NHL Entry Draft, the Sabres will have the 1st overall pick tonight in the 2018 Draft. There are a lot of rumblings out there that the Sabres are going with Rasmus Dahlin with the #1 pick. But word is out that Taro Tsujimoto has a grandson who is draft eligible this year. Wouldn’t be a giant surprise here if they keep this pick in the family. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.