Meet Taro Tsujimoto, the Buffalo Sabres draft pick who never actually existed originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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His name comes up from time to time: Taro Tsujimoto, the most unlikely draft pick in NHL history.
The Sabres chose him in the 1974 NHL Draft, but he didn’t actually exist.
Tsujimoto became a meme before the word ‘meme’ was commonplace. Fans got his last name on jerseys. They referenced him as an inside joke.
Recently, he was suggested as the guy who should bang the drum before a Sabres playoff game.
Obviously, a fictional man isn’t actually able to hit a very real drum.
But that’s Tsujimoto, as real for Sabres fans as if he once skated on the third line in Western New York.
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Who is Taro Tsujimoto?
Taro Tsujimoto is a fictional hockey player, but he was a real NHL Draft pick.
In the 1974 draft, the Sabres announced Tsujimoto’s name as the No. 183 overall pick, despite the fact that he wasn’t a real person.
Sabres GM Punch Imlach was annoyed by the length of the draft, and he decided to wage his own little protest by picking a fake name.
Tsujimoto was listed as a 20-year old Japanese forward who played for the Tokyo Katanas of the Japan Ice Hockey League — the Katanas weren’t real, either.
The Sabres didn’t stop with the draft selection, either.
They built a locker with a Tsujimoto No. 13 jersey in it for training camp. The rest of the Sabres players, according to The Athletic, were intrigued and waiting for Tsujimoto to show up.
The owners didn’t know that Tsujimoto wasn’t real, either.
But for someone who never existed, Tsujimoto sure has quite the lasting legacy.
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