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The world of ice hockey the last 20 years has seen a dramatic shift from wood sticks to carbon fiber. Carbon fiber is superior in all but 2 ways. First, sticks used to cost $20-30. Now they cost $200-300. More importantly, whereas wood would splinter or crack, carbon fiber sticks are highly prone to catastrophic failure. They just explode sometimes. This happens because they get small nicks in them due to skates, pucks, ice, whatever. Then when you load the shit out of it, that tensile strength becomes tear strength and that’s a whole ‘nuther ball game. Obviously industrial applications will have different quality materials, but it’s still one more thing to fear.