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Watch Ilya Bryzgalov explain the universe, China’s stringent tiger protection policies

Bryzgalov Tiger

Much of the buzz emanating from the debut episode of 24/7 Flyers/Rangers: Road to the Winter Classic surrounds Philadelphia Flyers goalie Ilya Bryzgalov, who emerged as the show’s breakthrough star.

Why breakthrough? I’m guessing some of it had to do with Bryz talking about the totality of everything that exists, including galaxies and the contents of intergalactic space:

A compelling vignette...right up until Bryz used the universe’s magnitude to diminish Earth issues. That kinda went off the rails. He almost made it sound like there were bigger galaxies with bigger problems. “You think Earth have problems? You should see galaxy Zorkon 12. Is crazy problems.”

Bryzgalov’s second act came late in the show, when he was receiving treatment from Flyers trainer Jim McCrossin. McCrossin presented Bryz with some kind of bootlegged Russian liquor featuring a picture of a tiger, which led to this exchange:

At first viewing I thought -- possibly like many of you thought -- that Bryzgalov was just talking a lot of nonsense. But it turns out he ain’t lying. Check this, from a 2007 Reuters article:

China growth seen raising threat tigers

Growing affluence means that more and more Chinese are able to afford exotic foods such as snakes, reptiles and frogs or buy traditional medicines like tiger bone wine believed by many in China to help lower blood pressure.

In China “more and more people get access to these expensive food stuffs,” Willem Wijnstekers, head of the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangerered Species (CITES), told a Reuters environment summit.

“Both within China and in neighboring countries there is a lot disappearing,” he said.

“Africa is full of Chinese wood buyers and the forests are rapidly disappearing in the direction of China as well,” he said. Timber is used both in China and for exports including furniture sold to nations from Europe to North America.

But he said that China had stringent penalties. “They have the death penalty for wildlife crime and they have used it,” he said. “I’m not going to promote the death penalty for CITES but they really take it seriously.”

So there you go. Bryz knows his international wildlife crime penalties.