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France beat Russia today

2013 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship

HELSINKI, FINLAND - MAY 9: France’s Sacha Treille #77 raises his arms as the game winning goal is scored on Russia’s Vasili Koshechkin #83 during preliminary round action at the 2013 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship. (Photo by Richard Wolowicz/HHOF-IIHF Images)

Richard Wolowicz

From the IIHF website:

HELSINKI – Antoine Roussel scored the second-period winner as France beat Russia 2-1 in one of the biggest upsets in international hockey history on Thursday. The result ended the defending champions’ World Championship winning streak at 13 games.

Damien Fleury and Antoine Roussel scored for France. This was France’s equivalent of the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” where U.S. college players defeated the heavily favoured Soviets at the Lake Placid Olympics.

NHLers in the Russian lineup (PDF) included New Jersey’s Ilya Kovalchuk and Andrei Loktionov, as well as Columbus players Artem Anisimov and Fedor Tyutin.

In the second period, former NHLer Alexander Radulov was stopped on a penalty shot by French goalie Florian Hardy.

“It’s fantastic to beat the defending champions and the best players in the world,” French coach Dave Henderson told the IIHF website, per NHL.com. “It’s so big for French hockey it’s hard to describe.”

HHOF-IIHF Image