I know this might be hard to believe, but once upon a time, the Buffalo Sabres were fun.
Taro Tsujimoto, taken by the Sabres in the 11th round of the 1974 draft, wasn't real. Imagined from whole cloth, he was a silent protest of an interminable draft process, a supposed unknown Japanese player, and neither the media nor the NHL itself had the means to check whether he actually existed.
The original idea was GM Punch Imlach's, but it fell upon Buffalo PR director Paul Wieland to give Tsujimoto life. Today at Sports on Earth, Alan Siegel catches up with the puckish Wieland, something like the Bill Veeck of his sport. It was Wieland who snuck into the visiting locker room to measure Ken Dryden's pads, so the Sabres could alert the referees and garner a power play. It was Wieland who sent out annual April Fools' Day press releases, including one in which he announced the Sabres would replace their ice with a mysterious artificial surface called "Sliderex," and another that featured a fake letter from Ronald Reagan declaring the Sabres "America's Team."
Mike Harrington @ByMHarrington-
It was 45 years ago yesterday that the Sabres clinched their first playoff berth in year 3 of their existence.
It was no April Fool's joke.
Mikhail Grigorenko just won his CSKA Moscow team a place in the Gagarin Cup-finals with his GWG in overtime against SKA from St. Petersburg, he also had the tying goal in the third to take it to OT. SKA has like 2/3 of the Russian Olympic team with Datsiuk, Kovalchuk, Voynov and Nikita Gusev to name a few.
LaxSabre - Auction ends tonight at 9:00 pm ET. Rick Jeanneret - with headset as his number - has the highest current bid - $725.00. Gilbert Perreault - current bid is $350. In the battle of the Instigators Hosts - Marty Biron - $250 - leads Andrew Peters - $225 - Craig Rivet - $150. Theres also an auction (which ends tonight-9:00 pm ET) going on with game worn away jerseys of current Buffalo Sabres. Jack Eichel - of course - currently has the highest bid there - $2025.00. Click on the link in the tweet to go place a bid on those - the jerseys start on page 2.
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