Samantha Rivera, Stanley Cup Finals reporter, fends off fan on live TV: ‘Get the hell out of my face’

Samantha Rivera, Stanley Cup Finals reporter, fends off fan on live TV: ‘Get the hell out of my face’

A reporter covering Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals had to fend off a fan who was trying to get into her live shot Monday night.

Samantha Rivera, a CBS Miami reporter, was recapping the Las Vegas Knights’ 7-2 win over the Florida Panthers when a fan tried to strong-arm his way into the shot.

Rivera wasn’t having it.

“Listen, I don’t give a damn what team you’re rooting for,” Rivera wrote on Twitter afterward. “Get the hell out of my face when I’m working and respect that I’m here to do my job.”

“Excited to get back home to some classy #Panthers fans for game 3!!” Rivera wrote.

The Vegas Golden Knights, through the first two games of a Stanley Cup Final, have outscored the Florida Panthers by eight goals, including Monday night’s 7-2 victory in Game 2 that put the Knights two wins from the first championship in the franchise’s short six-year history.

It will take a rare rally for the Panthers to come back as the series shifts to Florida for Game 3 on Thursday. Teams that took a 2-0 series lead in the Stanley Cup Final are 31-3 in the expansion era, but the Panthers opened the playoffs by storming back from 3-1 down to beat the heavily favored Boston Bruins.

Florida will have to significantly up its level of play to beat a Vegas team that won by three goals on Saturday and then five in this game. The last team to win the first two games of a Cup Final by more than eight combined goals was the 1996 Colorado Avalanche — who outscored the Panthers by nine.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.