Arnold Asham on the Curling Show

I'd like to highlight another episode of Dean Gemmell's Curling Show that I just listened to, which featured Arnold Asham.  For those that don't know, he's the founder of Asham, one of the big curling equipment suppliers.  Now, I'm not always up to date on the new curling technology, but I'm kind of intrigued with two of the new broom features discussed on the show:

The Boomerang Shaped Brush

Kind of a weird idea, right?  Most brooms today have a rectangular brush head (like mine) or an oval shape (like my teammates').  The boomerang kinda makes sense though; the diagonal parts should make it easier to brush debris and frost to the sides.
 
The Grooved Brush Head

Such a simple idea.  When you're sweeping, frost accumulates more on the edges of your brush head.  Why not make a brush head with more edges?  And it doesn't really cost all that much more for the grooves compared to the flat ($2 more). 

So I just added a boomerang broom with the grooves to my wishlist.  It costs $166, $100 more than my first broom, but I think I'm ready for something new when next season comes around.

My Curling Gear - My Broom

As there's no game this week, I'll have some posts on equipment that I use.  I can pretty much say that I buy among the lowest priced of all the stuff out there.  (But if anyone would like me to try out their stuff for free, just let me know.)  Anyway, I use a Goldline Matrix, shown here.

Of course, Goldline doesn't make these any more, so I'm a little worried about replacing the brush head.  In Curl to Win, Russ Howard talks about replacing the brush head like every month.  And I plan on replacing the brush head this year (for the first time) when Goldline visits SPCC. 

But in general, I've been happy with the swivel head.  And I know that I'm supposed to care about how heavy the broom is, but I don't notice.  Of course, my teammates would say, "It's not like you sweep that much" (even though I sub from time to time.)  I guess I kinda wish it had that little ridge the newer brooms have which seems a little nicer for sliding, but it's not really important. 

To sum up, it's a nice broom, and I plan on keeping it as long as there are brush head replacements.