Bryan Rust scores game-winner against brother’s alma mater

By Michael Caples –

ANN ARBOR – Bryan Rust just got the upper hand on his older brother.

The Novi native returned to Yost Ice Arena Thursday night, the building where his brother Matt played for four seasons.

And with Matt in the stands, Bryan scored the game-winning goal – for the opposition.

Rust, a junior forward and National Team Development Program alum, scored on a wraparound at the 14:22 mark of the second period, giving Notre Dame their first lead of the game.

“[Jeff] Costello and [Anders] Lee had a good forecheck off my dump-in,” Rust said when asked to describe his goal. “Puck went out to [Robbie] Russo at the point, his wrist shot deflected off my stick, went behind the net, and I just saw an opening, kind of wrapped it around.”

The goal made it 2-1 Notre Dame, after another Michigan native – Livonia’s Mike Voran – had tied the game for the Irish in the second period.

Notre Dame would add to their lead late in the game, and eventually prevail 3-1 over Michigan at Yost on a rare Thursday night game.

“It’s obviously a blast coming back to Michigan, because I always have a lot of family and friends who come out here,” said Rust, who played his amateur hockey for Honeybaked. “It was nice to have my brother in the stands, I know he finished his hockey career and he’s back at school here and he played four good years here, so it was fun to have him in the crowd for a change, instead of me always being the little brother in the crowd.”

Rust said that for the bragging rights to continue – a.k.a. for the Irish to win Friday night as well – his team will need to stay aggressive.

“We have to keep our momentum up, we can’t let down,” Rust said. “We have to keep attacking their ‘D’, keep getting pucks out of our zone and into their zone, and we really have to get our forecheck going kind of like we did in the third period.”

Now the only question is, how did older brother Matt actually feel about the goal?