(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Millions have now seen the video of CBS News Miami’s Samantha Rivera stiff-arming an unruly hockey fan who interrupted her live report from the Stanley Cup Final on Monday night.
Rivera, who grew up on Chicago’s South Side and graduated from DePaul, told WBBM she “handled it the best way I knew how to.”
It happened during Rivera’s live report from the stands of T-Mobile Arena, where the Las Vegas Golden Knights had just defeated the Florida Panthers. Not long into her report, a Golden Knights fan tried shoving his way into the frame and can be heard yelling “Go Vegas, Go.”
“I don’t know if I heard him first or I felt him first, but as soon as I sensed it, my arm just came out,” Rivera said. “I was like, ‘This is not going to happen.’”
Rivera immediately stepped up, said “Nope,” and shoved the man out of the frame in a matter of seconds. Then, she got into the highlights.
After it aired, Rivera tweeted a short video showing the stiff arm.
“I don’t give a d--- what team you’re rooting for — get the h--- out of my face when I’m working and respect that I’m here to do my job,” she wrote on Twitter.
Rivera told WBBM that she had a bad feeling and could sense that the fan was going to try and do something.
“I was annoyed,” she said. “I was honestly angry that it even happened because I keep telling everybody: I would not go into somebody’s workplace and try to mess up what they’re doing. For whatever reason people look at us, and they’re like, ‘Oh, this is my chance to mess up whatever they’re doing.’ I don’t understand it.”
The full video can be viewed here:
As more and more people have seen the video, Rivera said she’s received a lot of positive comments, texts and calls from family and friends who have expressed how proud they are of her. She also heard from one of her old DePaul journalism professors.
“He was like, ‘Samantha, I woke up to you being in all these headlines — great job. So proud of how you handled it,’” she said. “So that was really cool.”
It all comes back to a simple concept, Rivera said: Respect.
“Why do people think it’s OK to mess up what we’re doing?” she said. “What we do is a serious job, and all I ask for is respect.”
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