My Brother's Game 4 Recap

First, my brother's search for curling shoes is over.  He didn't like the Goldline Shot, and decided to go with the Ultima Sport, which he bought from Steve's Curling.  Funny how he switched from the $70 Eagle to a shoe that costs $125.  Of course, adjusting to the shoe was kind of difficult for my brother and struggled with throwing light enough weight.  However, he thought the shoes were comfortable.

My brother's team lost again.  Their opponents though had three instructors so it was kind of an uphill battle.  (My brother's team is the only one without instructors.)  After the third end though, the score was tied, but then the opposing team scored four in the fourth end.  (The Bond Girls call this the "Fourth End Curse".)  Also, my brother switched places with his lead so that they can get a little more experience at another position. 

A couple other notes:
-The guy that hit his head (described here) is OK, but is sitting out the rest of the league.  Let's hope he comes back.
-Out of the 30+ people who attended the original Learn to Curl clinic, about 20 are now in this league, so that's pretty good for the growth of curling over there.  All they need now is some rich benefactor to help build a club.
-My brother's looking for a spot on someone's team for the Golden Gate Bonspiel.  E-mail me if you know of any openings on any of the teams.
-The Norwegian curling team will be visiting the Bay Area and will be raffling off a pair of pants.  That's a fun giveaway.

Random Updates

Due to a lot of snow, our curling game this past week has been postponed.  I guess that's what happens when you live in Minnesota.  We'll follow up on a few other items.

First on the saga of my brother's curling shoe search.  After two weeks, my brother finally received his Eagle shoes from Brooms Up Curling Supplies, but they were too big.  He has since decided to get the Goldline Shot, just like me.  At first, I didn't think he should buy shoes since he'd only get to play like 3 games in them, but it looks like there'll be another league in April, so that'll be good.

And now one of my brother's teammates is interested in getting a broom.  He asked me about the Tournament Performance Broom and the Performance Brush Fiberglass.  I haven't used either before, but both look fine to me.  Anyone have suggestions for a low cost broom that still has the swivel head?

On a related note, my brother's curling league started last week, but he couldn't make it.  One of his instructors subbed for him and his team won.  Good for them. 

And last, Second brought his baby boy to our game the week before.  Someone in Second's family made him this onesie, which I thought was cute.

Curling Gear - Shot Shoes

My team has a bye this week, so here's another post on curling gear, specifically shoes.  Since the fall of 2008, I have used the Shot shoes from Goldline.  These shoes were picked because they were among the cheapest ($95 plus shipping).  I hadn't really been curling that long yet at the time, but had been told by several curlers that buying shoes is a really good purchase.

I could not agree more.  I remember at the start of that season, Vice and I were practicing and it was my first time wearing my new curling shoes.  After a few slides, I said to him, "I feel like I can make any shot in these shoes."  Now, as described in a few of these posts, I certainly am not a great player, but I could definitely feel the difference in my slide between wearing shoes and using a slider.  And while this is hard to directly attribute to the shoes, by the end of that season, we had a seven game win streak and almost won the second half season for the league.  (Let me just say that there was a LOT of luck involved in that win streak.)

One thing that my shoes don't have is a toe dip on my right shoe (FYI, I'm right handed).  I can see how having the toe dip would reduce the resistance there a little bit.  Additionally, for the Shot shoe, the teflon thickness is only 1/16".  I can't speak to this from experience, but they say you should be able to get more weight in shots with thicker teflon.  So I'm guessing that my next set of shoes will be thicker, but I'm a little worried that, combined with a toe dip, it'll be even harder to dial back my weight when I need to.  But there's probably always adjustments for new shoes.

Recently, Shot Rock Curling Supplies set up shop at the club and I was looking at the Balance Plus shoes, all of which have a dimple in the center of the teflon part of the shoe.  It was explained to me that this forces you to have your foot flat and therefore better balanced.  For me at least, with my tuck slide, I'm not sure that I'll get the full benefit as my slide has me on my toes. 

I didn't try them on, so I guess I don't really know.  It'd be nice if someone (me?) were able to try on a bunch of shoes and write up a comprehensive comparison.  But until then, I can tell you that I like my Shot shoes and I would recommend to pretty much all curlers that they get some curling shoes.

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.