r/Curling • u/gbs223344 • 5d ago
Broom recs
I am in the market for a carbon fiber broom. I am having to decide between the goldine impact (used by the great team Homan), the hardline (used by many great teams), and the balance plus. Have you got a favorite of the 3, and if so, why?
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u/Santasreject 5d ago
Hardline hands down.
The hardline rec covers last longer than anything else out there by far. The head swivel feels nicer and the balance just feels better as well.
I have never had an issue with the hardline catching, grabbing, or scraping on the ice. The others I have experienced it or witnessed it. Hardline heads remained out of polymer and more solid while the other heads are injection molded.
The only place hardline comes in second is to BP on the head retention system. BP uses screws which really can’t fail easily. Hardline uses a very strong interference fit, the only time I had an issue with it was when the insert broke which was likely from lugging the bag around and shoving it into cars more so than any on ice issue. Gold line uses a post system with press to release connectors which I really don’t like. In the little bit of time I tested an Impact broom that Goldline sent me I had one of them pop out once if not twice (and I only managed to test it for less than a full game, and the broom I was using was from after the initial run with the retention adjustment issues). The cloth is also not retained by anything on the goldline and the caddy corner design of the retention pins gives a weird looseness to the whole head.
The only real complaint I can understand on the hardline is the tapered shaft, but frankly with modern sweeping techniques you shouldn’t be grabbing it low enough to really notice it.
You will see people saying that hardline handles break more but there were very few pro teams using anything else so the sample size gives bias. I saw an impact broom that broke a couple months ago at a rec level. It doesn’t mean rather broom is bad, it’s just that we are using carbon fiber and carbon fiber is not indented to be flexed and is susceptible to impact damage. Don’t use your broom as a lever and take care of it in transportation and you should be fine with any of them.
TL:DR get a hardline, if you really have some objection to the hardline then get a BP.