Squeaking Sound in Blade

[PHunter 0]

Hi all, I searched around for an answer to this, but nothing really described my situation.

So I recently bought a CCM U+CS stick, and I've been falling in love with it so far; another one is on the way soon .

I do have a small, annoying problem that I fear could mean the blade breaking prematurely. A few days ago, I went to a open hockey session, and the first slapshot I took, I became aware of a rattling sound in the shaft. I didn't pay it much attention, and the stick performed with no issues for the rest of the two hours.

After the session, I took a look, and out dropped a shard of some sort of materiel from the shaft; it was translucent, dark black, covered with some fine powder (carbon? graphite?), triangular-ish shaped, and fairly flexible- about as flexible as a CD. It was about an inch long on each side, and about a millimeter thick.

I would have posted a photo, but I threw it away, the idiot that I am.

When I got home, I noticed that whenever I stickhandled with a golf ball, or smacked the stick against against the ground lightly, it would make some sort of squeaking sound; I doesn't happen when I lean on the stick, or if I press down on the blade itself. The blade does not have any sort of visible break or crack, and is stiff as before.

Here are my questions; what on earth was that shard of material, does it have anything to do with the squeaking sound, and the biggest one, will the squeaking sound have any sort of detrimental impact on the performance or the durability of the stick?

Thanks for reading through my ramble, and thanks in advance!