"Hey bro, you okay, bro?"

On Friday, the 76th annual IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship got underway in Finland and Sweden, and the U.S. team laid a 7-2 hurting on Team France for anyone who might have missed the game (translated: errbody). Obviously, France was pretty pissed off about that humiliating defeat, so the Fightin’ Eiffels came out swinging pretty hard against Kazakhstan yesterday. France won the game 6-3, but that’s not what anyone is talking about today.

The game featured 63 penalty minutes in total, but the biggest hit of the game belonged to 24-year old French forward Sacha Treille, who laid a vicious shoulder shot to Roman Starchenko’s head-ish/neck-ish regions, knocking him out cold. Treille received a major and match penalty, good enough for an ejection, and the hit will be reviewed by the IIHF disciplinary panel.

Sadly, I think this means I have to retire my Zinedine Zidane headbutt GIF as my favorite French sports cheap shot. I think it’s worth it, though.

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There’s a pretty strong chance that you have no clue who Zahia Dehar is, unless you’re a huge fan of French soccer. But to fill you in and make all of you kids hip to the scene, Dehar is a 19-year old fashion designer who debuted her brand new lingerie line to rave reviews yesterday during Couture Fashion Week at the Palais Brongniart in Paris. Her achievement is remarkable in itself because of her age and the fact that she has only been modeling for the past year or so, but it’s most remarkable because of her first career as an underage prostitute.

So where does the French soccer correlation come in? In 2010, Dehar admitted to French officials that she had been paid for sex on multiple occasions by at least three prominent French soccer players. As the scandal became national news, it was revealed that the three players were Franck Ribéry, Karim Benzema and Sidney Govou. French officials swore that any players involved with Dehar and this huge prostitution ring would be ineligible to play for the French National Team. Fortunately, Ribéry wasn’t investigated until after the 2010 FIFA World Cup, so he was able to play. Only after the tournament was he indicted for soliciting an underage prostitute.

Ribéry’s career since the indictment has been riddled with injuries, as he never quite developed into his one-time status as France’s next big star. But Dehar is doing just fine, and since I feel like we don’t ever have enough fashion on this site, I thought we’d take a little look at what she’s been up to this week.

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More than 500 bums, hobos, transients, tramps, and the “socially marginalized” from 48 countries have gathered in Paris, France for the 9th annual Homeless Cup games. Yes, it is exactly what you think – homeless people playing soccer. However, these aren’t the meth-addled, schizophrenic dumpster-divers that you and I have grown to loathe and avoid eye contact with. These are down-on-their-luck men and women with a collective goal of ending global homelessness. You know, low aspirations.

I have to admit, when I first read about this yesterday while eating diamond-encrusted lobster and wiping my mouth with hundred dollar bills, I pictured a more barbaric, Thunderdome-esque competition, with discarded food being thrown into the arena to encourage violence. But it’s actually a pretty nice looking event.

In fact, it reminds me of a similar idea that I had last year. *cue wavy dream flashback sequence*

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Or, if you’d like a less literate title, “Snowmobiling’s Ultimate ‘Whoops, I Backflipped On a Snowmobile and Now I’m Falling Down a Mountain’ Helmetcam Fail.” In a video you’re likely to see everywhere (including your nightmares), we find out exactly what it looks like to fall down a mountain. It’s scary enough to fall, but this guy has to fall with a snowmobile behind him. And in front of him at one point. There isn’t much context, but what context do you need besides “holy sh** this guy is gonna die?”

The action starts about :45 seconds in, if you want to skip the beautiful (if not ominous) scenery. Be sure you don’t stop it in the middle, because he’s just getting going.

[H/T Gizmodo]

Picture lazily related.

*This isn’t really about the Olympics.

I don’t know what’s being pumped into the water in France lately, but those baguette-eating wine-sniffers are really earning some street cred. First, they didn’t bother waiting to take the first shot at Libya, and now their firefighters are telling the rest of the world to embrasser mon derriere. While this is apparently news from February, our reporters in With Leather’s French bureau have been drunk since 2008 so we’re just now discovering the awesomeness of the “Jeux Olympiques des Pompiers”, or the Olympic Games of the Firefighters.

In the video below you can witness the awesomeness of the French firefighter competition, as they run around with ladders and hoses while jumping walls like jungle cats. But in the end, these Olympics aren’t about who wins, mainly because they all surrender when the German firefighters show up.

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Two Muslim women were thrown out of a community swimming pool in southern France for wearing “burkinis,” swimwear designed to cover the entire body, including a hood over the head. Burkas were recently banned by the French government.

They were asked to either change into conventional bikinis or one-piece costumes or leave the swimming pool.

A holiday camp spokesman said: “The husbands became very irate that their wives were not allowed to swim with their bodies covered, and one of them threatened violence [with a bowling ball].”

Muslims? Threatening violence? Surely you jest. But apparently the pool had different ideas about the ban.

Regional government official Marie-Paule Bardeche said: “This is an issue stemming from the holiday centre’s own regulations.

“They state men and women must wear ordinary swimwear for hygiene reasons. Men are not even allowed to wear long shorts in the water.” –IOL.

France is on record as calling the burka “an insult to the country’s values.” Muslim tradition dictates that women keep their heads covered whenever in public. And there’s plenty of room to argue about this. London is basically bending over backwards to accommodate the Muslim community. And oh yeah, there’s that who Ground Zero mosque business. I made a poor joke earlier in the post about violence, but most Muslims just want to live their lives in observance of their faith. That’s a constitutional freedom that we Americans enjoy, and probably take for granted more than we’re willing to admit.