bpm
Harvey Hacksmasher
Registered: Nov 2008
Location:
Posts: 40 |
I had to watch the video to see what you meant - I had interpreted your initial wording as referring to the brushing motion, rather than the orientation of the broomhead itself.
The broomhead is essentially a straight line. It appears that when sweeping for distance, they are keeping the broomheads perpendicular to the path of the stone. But when sweeping for curl, it appears they change the broomhead orientation to be parallel to the path.
As a very rudimentary illustration:
Distance: <<< | >>>
Curl: <<< --- >>>
I imagine the theory behind this has to do with the two ways in which sweeping impacts the stone - heating and scratching.
If you are sweeping for distance, you want to heat the path of the stone through friction. To do this, it is likely most helpful to maximize the surface area being impacted by the brushing, and therefore a perpendicular orientation would have the greatest impact. Conversely, a parallel orientation might have a more concentrated impact on a smaller area, but it might also fail to heat the entire path, and it might leave patches un-swept if the brush-rate can't keep up with the forward motion of the stone.
If you are sweeping for curl, you are trying to create micro-scratches on the surface of the ice. It was discovered about 7-8 years ago that a rock seems to follow these scratches as it travels along it's trajectory (especially with since-banned highly abrasive materials), so you can make a stone curl by scratching at an angle to the current trajectory.
Perhaps the theory of orienting the broomhead parallel to the path of the stone for curl (or rather, to the desired trajectory, or parallel to the vector most likely to achieve the desired alteration to the trajectory...sorry) is that it will create slightly longer scratches, or perhaps scratches that are more concentrated together and more likely to influence the stone's path.
The above assumes a basic understanding of directional sweeping (i.e. angle of brushing motion relative to path of stone), so I didn't elaborate on that aspect.
It's also pure speculation on my part. I'm not an elite player nor have I spent time researching sweeping. I could be completely wrong.
Last edited by bpm on 09-19-22 at 05:28AM
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