Here’s one thing Rosie the Riveter can’t do.
National Women’s Hockey League officials suspended the New York Riveters’s Elena Orlando for one game on Jan. 8 after the defender jumped off the bench and repeatedly slugged an opposing player amid a melee during the Riveters’ 6–1 loss to the Connecticut Whale at Aviator Sports on Jan. 3.
The team is named for Rosie the Riveter — a World War II-era feminist symbol meant to encourage women to join the war effort whose slogan was “We can do it.”
Whale Micaela Long porpoise-fully leveled Riveters defender Ashley Johnston six seconds after a ref’s whistle in the game’s third period, igniting an on-ice brawl that drew three Brooklyn players, including Orlando, from the bench, officials said.
But the league didn’t suspend the other riveters, because they didn’t go as buck-wild as Orlando, honchos said.
“The Player Safety Committee has determined that their actions, while illegal, are not worthy of a suspension, as they were not as actively involved in the altercation as Orlando,” a press release states.
A video shows Orlando flying into the fracas, throwing more than a dozen jabs, and taking at least one to the chin before officials could quell the scrum.
Both Long and Orlando had to sit out a Jan. 9 rematch where the Whale (11–1) beat the struggling Riveters (3–8) in Connecticut 4–3.
