TARO’S CARD
IN THIS ORAL HISTORY, WE REVEAL THE TRUE STORY BEHIND THE MAKING OF THE ONLY FAKE RC IN HOCKEY HISTORY.
It started the way so many of hockey’s great off-ice stories did – because someone with too much time on his hands was bored. Ten rounds into the interminable 1974 NHL dra , Punch Imlach had seen enough. In the eyes of the Buffalo Sabres general manager there were no prospects remaining with any real chance of becoming NHL players and, a er a long day, exhaustion was taking a toll. So as his 11th round pick drew close, the future Hall of Famer chose to pull a prank with the choice rather than select some go-nowhere farm boy.
Working with the team’s PR director, Paul Wieland, Imlach invented a prospect out of whole cloth. And when he announced Taro Tsujimoto of the Tokyo Katanas as the 183rd selection, the hockey world took the bait.
is was a time when foreign-born players were rarely scouted, let alone dra ed, so the buzz was instantaneous. Some of his peers laughed. Others wondered if they’d missed a potential star. e media picked up on the curiosity and reported on the young prospect. Everyone wanted to know more. Imlach, to his credit, strung out the bit over the summer, repeatedly confirming that Tsujimoto would attend training camp and was expected to make the team.
When he finally revealed the truth, the league was furious … but Sabres fans fully embraced the fun of the myth, building on it over the years. ey’d respond to poor play with the chant, “We want Taro!” ey’d hoist signs imploring him to come to Buffalo, and buy shirts and jerseys bearing his name. As time passed, his legend seemed only to grow.
And that’s where our story begins...
AL MUIR, FORMER HOCKEY BRAND MANAGER, PANINI:
A er Dominion, we had a licensing slot open to produce one more 2010-11 product. We’d pretty much exhausted our budget for the year and management was ready to move on to 2011-12, but (assistant brand manager) Clint Hall and I really wanted that one final product. We were afraid if we didn’t use it, it might be taken away and we’d only be allowed to do 10 products the next season.
A er batting around some ideas, we compromised on the Score Rookies and Traded concept. I’d always loved the boxed update sets of the early boom years, and knew it would be fun to build the checklist to put a cap on the season.
MARTY MCQUAIG, SENIOR MANAGER, LICENSING, NHLPA:
I think it’s always good for set builders – whenever possible
– to update an entry-level retail set with a Rookies and Traded, especially with Score having released so early in the calendar that season. With the ‘90-91 Score design, it had a lot of resonance too with collectors around my age who remembered various Eric Lindros junior and Blue Jays batting practice cards from Traded update sets back in the day.
MUIR: We kept it cheap at a $19.99 SRP, and jammed in 99 cards, five parallels and an autograph. at was solid value, but we still wanted another hook.
We were hyper focused on Rookie Cards that season. Not just trying to be first to market with new players as they debuted, but going back in history to find interesting guys who’d been overlooked by O-Pee-Chee for one reason or another. We ended up creating RCs for players like Steve Carlson and Dave Hanson and Connie Madigan from “Slap Shot,” and Seth Martin, who was an inaugural member of the St. Louis Blues and had led Canada to a World Championship in 1961. We knew they wouldn’t have the same impact as an RPA of Taylor Hall or Tyler Seguin, but we wanted to create something fun for collectors that might also generate a little buzz outside the hobby. e “Slap Shot” cards definitely did that.
One day, a group of brand managers was out at lunch when Sidd Finch, the legendary Sports Illustrated April Fool’s joke, came up. I brought up Taro Tsujimoto. e other guys weren’t aware of him at all, so I start telling them the whole story. And as I am, the idea just sort of clicks. Why not a
Taro RC?
BILL HOPPE, SABRES BEAT WRITER, OLEAN TIMES HERALD:
Taro’s legend means a lot to Sabres fans. It’s something that has been passed through generations. e name is probably as well known here as some of the franchise’s most popular players. He’s that much of a legend. You see people born long a er he was “dra ed” wearing jerseys and shirts of him. I think fans celebrate the uniqueness of the story. Everything about it is bizarre. Imagine the reaction today if a team wasted a dra pick like that?
MCQUAIG: Until the idea was proposed for the card, I was only mildly familiar with the old tale of the Sabres dra ing a fake player. at dra was well-before my early-in-life trips to the Aud to watch guys like Christian Ruuttu, Scott Arniel, and Mike Foligno.
MUIR: Both the NHL and NHLPA were great to work with that season. But, you know, we were always trying to push
creative boundaries so there were more than a few times when a concept we loved was rejected by one licensor or the other. I didn’t blame them for that – they have to look out for their constituencies and there usually was a good reason for their decision – but we thought getting Taro approved was a long shot at best.
Usually approvals take some time. But we heard back from both the league and the PA almost immediately … and they both loved the idea.
DAVE MCCARTHY, VICE-PRESIDENT, CONSUMER PRODUCTS MARKETING, NHL:
I was aware of the (Taro dra ) prank ... so why not have a little fun with it? We’re in the entertainment business a er all.
MCQUAIG: I’m not normally big on gimmicks. My job is representing actual NHL players in these sets, I get a lot more satisfaction seeing a depth defenseman getting in a checklist than something like (the Donruss) Fans Of e Game inserts. But this idea was a little different, and was designed as kind of an Easter Egg component for Sabres fans (and others) to discover for themselves.
Plus, the (Score) checklist was pretty expansive at that point, and it was a pretty well-researched story, so it wasn’t a significant hurdle to overcome internally as I recall. As long as Panini was comfortable with the image used and other basic background was done, there weren’t major issues from our end.
MUIR: But there was one major issue. Where were we going to get a picture of a guy who didn’t exist?
We needed a photo of a Japanese hockey player that was era-appropriate, high quality and within our budget. Yeah, good luck with that. Before we even proposed the idea (to the licensors), our photo editor went to work. She tried everything. e Hockey
Hall of Fame. e Japanese Ice Hockey Federation. Nothing.
Just when it looked like the idea was dead in the water, we got the approval from the NHLPA. And I think in the same email, Marty said he might have a guy.
MCQUAIG: Yeah, there is a gentleman who has been an NHL/NHLPA licensee for many years, who I knew played minor pro in the ‘70s and would be almost the exact age for that dra . I knew his background was Chinese, rather than Japanese, so I asked his son for his take before I approached him directly. But I think I knew him well enough at that point, and knew what a hockey nut he was, that he’d find it a pretty cool idea. It was really down to whether or not he had any usable photos from back in the day, where quality photography from the minors can be scarce.
JOHN LEE, THE “REAL” TARO TSUJIMOTO:
My company (JF Sports Canada) is the longest standing NHL licensee in Canada and maybe the longest standing NFL licensee, too. When JFSC approached the NHLPA for a license to complement our NHL license I met Marty McQuaig. Our friendship grew over the years and Marty knew of my background and so when he was looking to find a photo of an Asian hockey player from the ‘70s I guess it was a no brainer because there were not that many of us.
MUIR: is was literally the make-or-break moment. Without Marty knowing John and making that connection for us, and John being amenable to the idea, the card doesn’t happen.
LEE: I didn’t know the Taro story at all. When Marty approached me I dug around and read the Punch Imlach story and it all started to make sense. I thought it sounded interesting. Marty said there’d never been a card done like this before so I said, yeah, let’s do it.
MUIR: I had no idea who John was when the photo came in. We were rushing to get the product out on a tight deadline while working on the early 2011-12 products. e photo was perfect and that’s all I was worried about. I don’t remember if I even got his name at the time. I certainly didn’t realize he was a truly high-level player.
LEE: I played two years at Lake Superior State College (1970-72). In my second year we won the NAIA championship, proving we were the best team in Division 1. A er that,