Bryan Rust covered a lot of topics in his appearance on video game streamer Ninja's Twitch stream on Wednesday -- from his thoughts to what the Penguins would have done had they made the playoffs, to his thoughts on some of the current teams and players still playing, and Sidney Crosby's future.
He ended with a fun story from the summer after the Penguins' 2017 Stanley Cup Championship.
Rust's Stanley Cup parties in both 2016 and 2017 were coincidentally scheduled on his wife Kelsey's birthday. For the second one, she said that she wanted a night for herself too. Bruno Mars was doing a show at the Palace of Auburn Hills in Michigan the night before the Cup party, so Rust, Kelsey, Trevor Daley and Daley's wife Kristy all went with third-row tickets.
As they were going to their seats, a couple of Red Wings players saw Daley and Rust from their suite and invited them up. Daley and Rust watch part of the concert with their wives before heading up to the suite, with their wives content to watch the show from their great seats.
"We go up in the suite and Kid Rock is there," Rust recalled. "He's trying to be a senator or something at this point. And I don't know what he's doing but he's shaking hands, he's talking to everybody. He's having a good time."
Daley was having a good time too, and wanted to make sure Rust was as well.
"Trevor Daley is notorious for if he's drinking, he's gonna find one guy, and he's gonna bury him," Rust said. "Well, that was me. Today, that time, was me. And so he's feeding me shots, and I'm just dying."
Rust said that by the end of the concert, he's "on a different planet."
"At this point, I gotta go home," Rust said. "Thank God this thing is over. Lights come on in the place and we're like, all right, everyone's gone. It's time to go home. The girls come in, they see my eyes are going different directions. But then, Kid Rock decides to go, 'Hey, everybody who's in here, after party at my house.' And I'm thinking in my head, 'Oh, boy, this isn't good. There's no way they're saying no to this, I gotta go home, I'm not going.'"
Rust was ultimately convinced otherwise, and they got a ride for the 40-minute trip to Kid Rock's house.
"I fell asleep," Rust said of the drive. "So I'm like, I'm going to be golden. I'm out cold. I'm perfect. I wake up in line. He's got a gate with like, spotlights on the side. And I'm at the front gate, and we're the next car up."
That's when Rust had a feeling and thought, "Oh boy, this isn't good."
"I pop the door open, sprint out what I thought was like 50 yards, like I'm gonna get deep into the woods," Rust said. "I'm done here. Start throwing up everywhere, throwing up everywhere I ended up figuring out that I'm literally over the spotlight. And there's like 15 cars waiting, and I'm just throwing up basically into the spotlight. It's the only thing you can see, it's 1 a.m."
Rust makes it back to the car, and they get to Kid Rock's house and got inside his 1950s-style kitchen with checkered floors and a leather booth to look like a diner.
"It was awesome," Rust said. "And then I'm like, all right, I'm gonna get sick again. I'd been up for two minutes, sprint out to the driveway. I'm like, by 10-15 feet from the door. And I'm throwing up for 10-20 minutes. It just nonstop."
That's when Kid Rock emerged from the house.
"He's like, 'Who the f--- is getting sick in my driveway?!,'" Rust remembered. "And at this point, Trevor Daley's, like, best buddies with him. Because that's just the kind of guy he is. He comes out through the door and was like, 'Hey, don't worry about it! It's just my buddy Rusty!' Then (Kid Rock) is like, 'Oh! A two-time Cup champ is getting sick in my driveway!'"
Rust rallied enough to tell his wife Kelsey he needed to go home, and made it to his Stanley Cup party the next day and "felt great." And he claims Kelsey was fine with her birthday ending up with her husband throwing up all over Kid Rock's driveway.
"Oh, she didn't care," Rust said. "She thought like, 'Hey, you're not bugging me anymore. Me and Kristy are going to enjoy this. You guys get the hell out of here.'"
