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Stick thrower Ilya Bryzgalov was a guest on the Mike and Ike Show on WIP today, seemingly to promote his upcoming autograph signing at the Sports Vault in the King of Prussia Mall this Sunday (take a little gander at and then click that ad over the right ——>). Among the topics discussed were assimilating into Philly, the rough schedule, and, of course, meteors.

Understand what’s expected of you here now?

“I needed some time to understand new environment. How it works here.”

“I understand what I have to expect from the people who work here, who cheer for the team, what they expect from me.”

 

In other words: what his bosses and fans want. Bryz, both publicly and not-so publicly, struggled to adjust to being a Flyer last year.

Tired?

“I just wake up in the morning today and think about what happened last night, I realize, watching the schedule, like, oh my God, for 31 days, we play 19 games. 19. It’s a lot. Usually like during the normal season you play maximum games in a month– 15. That’s four games difference, and 12 of them we play on the road. I feel like exhausted, and I’m pretty sure the team feels the same way. It’s a crazy schedule, lots of travel, lots of back-to-back games. Sometimes it’s tough to find energy and emotions to play some games. You know it’s very important game, but nothing left inside you. You need time to sit and regroup.”

“Do you think it’s fun to lose? No. we don’t want to lose. We want to win. Sometimes you just can’t– sometimes just tired, bounces don’t go your way.”

 


Time off?

“I don’t have that luxury. We gotta do what you go to do. We got to give our best every night. Whatever the team need. We always try to give our best. But sometimes we’re not machines.” 

 

How about that meteor in Russia?

“It’s amazing. Probably every day our atmosphere was penetrated with smaller sized meteors and just burned high in the atmosphere. But this is much bigger size, but not that big that it struck the earth and didn’t… [inaudible] like back in the days when dinosaurs was destroyed. It’s one thing that's very interesting. On the other hand, it’s dangerous. And you know we can’t protect ourselves from the space danger.” 

“The next day, asteroid bigger size fly close to the earth. Make us think… [inaudible] huge speeds in the earth… [inaudible]… it’s going to be a disaster right now… [inaudible] how to recover the earth. I think we need to be thankful and be happy. Enjoy our everyday with our relatives, our wives, kids. Enjoy our work every day.”

 

Just watch out for falling rocks.

You can't listen to the full interview here.