
Canada to Study a Mysterious Curling ‘Frankenbroom' - mhb
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/canada-is-using-lasers-and-robots-to-study-a-mysterious-curling-frankenbroom
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the_unknown
There are always lines to be drawn - this is "in" or this is "out". Are
performance enhancing drugs in or out of Baseball? What about catamarans in
the America's Cup or Oscar Pistorius' running blades. Or more interestingly
the running blades on a non-paralympic athlete's legs?

Researching technology and techniques to determine if they are good for the
sport like the Curling Federation is doing is little different from the MLBA
deciding on whether wood, metal, or corked and testing the effects on the
game.

I'm not sure the manufacturing changes "improved" the sport so much as
"changed" it which could be good, bad, or indifferent depending on the team,
skill, strengths, and weaknesses. But testing and understanding the changes is
a worthwhile goal.

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M_Grey
The only thing that surprises me is how long it apparently took for Curling to
have its "aluminum bat" moment.

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colomon
This is old news, new rules came out as a result this month:
[http://www.curling.ca/blog/2016/09/11/curling-canada-
adopts-...](http://www.curling.ca/blog/2016/09/11/curling-canada-adopts-new-
sweeping-regulations/)

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cwilkes
For an article about how revolutionary these brooms are it would have been
helpful for a description of how they can be used to vastly improve a bad
throw. Or do some weird turns. Maybe a video even.

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imissmyjuno
> a scientific mystery that is rattling the foundations of curling

I'm Canadian and it was hard to not wonder if I was reading the Onion

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dredmorbius
Spot the fake Canuck.

(He didn't apologise.)

(I'm sorry.)

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jomamaxx
"World Sweeping Summit"

Ha ha ... only in Canada.

It's actually a great sport, you can play until you're 100.

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cyberferret
This would be Canada's version of Australia II's 'winged keel' ?? ;)

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nxzero
How can something be "too good for the sport" is beyond me. I get that it
makes comparing the past to the present, but it literally based on the
description in the story made it seem like the changes were improving the
"sport" on the competition.

~~~
roywiggins
> “It got a little out of hand this season where it became more of a line-
> calling game and a sweeping game as opposed to a throwing game,” explained
> Miskew. “We don’t want it to be about the fabric on your broom head. We want
> it to be about throwing it [the rock] well.”

So it sounds like they make the throwing part of the game "obsolete" since the
sweepers have so much control that it doesn't matter how bad the throw was. So
it's unbalancing the game in unexpected ways.

~~~
hyperpallium
Nerf OP broom.

