Vote for the Vermont High School Team of the Year, Powered by Delta Dental: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Vermont high school team of the year vote, and who runs it?

The Burlington Free Press, the long-standing daily newspaper based in Burlington, Vermont, closed the 2025-26 high school sports calendar with a single reader question: which team owned the year? The promotion carried the title Vote for the Vermont high school team of the year, and the paper attached Delta Dental as its powering sponsor. Balloting ran on Crowdsignal, the polling host reached through poll.fm, where the vote circulated under poll 17164759.

The people behind the slate

Filling the ballot fell to the newsroom. As the organizers put it, sports reporters Alex Abrami and Judith Altneu tallied a list of 10 state champions to be included on the ballot, and the same announcement set the scene: "The 2025-26 Vermont high school sports year is in the books." Each entry earned its seat by winning a championship, and the group spans girls and boys programs across the fall, winter and spring seasons.

The tables below condense the administrative facts and the full slate of nominees.

Every nominee below comes straight from the ballot text.

Which editions ran, and when did the window open and shut?

An edition of the team of the year vote is confirmed for 2026, and that cycle stands alone so far. The balloting window sat inside June 2026, and the organizers pinned its finish to a single printed line: "Voting is unlimited until the poll closes at 9 p.m. on Thursday, July 9." When that moment passed, the ballot header flipped to a Poll Closed notice, which is the status the vote still shows.

Reading the dates

Treat the programme as young rather than established. This is the first confirmed edition; whether it returns next year is not yet published; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

The ballot text stays deliberately narrow: a single question, ten champion entries, and nothing resembling a wider category roster. Among the visible results, the closed page paired Spaulding wrestling with 58%. No overall total of votes cast appeared beside the percentages, and the organizers printed no turnout figure of any kind.

How does a supporter actually vote on this ballot?

Casting a vote took little more than a click. A supporter opened the team of the year ballot on Crowdsignal at poll.fm/17164759, clicked the selection beside a chosen champion entry, and submitted. That was the whole mechanism; the ballot asked for a preference, not an essay or an argument.

Volume and access

Repeat participation was the notable freedom. The organizers' printed rule made voting unlimited for the life of the poll, so a household could back the same team nightly and a school community could rally behind its roster without watching a counter. What the submission step asked of a visitor, beyond the click itself, is not spelled out anywhere on the ballot text the paper circulated.

The vote behaved like an ordinary web page, so it opened in a phone browser without an app or a store download. Nothing on the page sought payment at any step.

For anyone planning around a future edition, the practical checklist is short: find the live ballot, read its printed closing time, and budget repeat visits against whatever participation rule that edition prints.

How does this ballot sit beside Vermont's other public votes?

Vermont readers meet no shortage of public ballots over a year, and this entry occupies a particular slot among them. Where most of the state's best-of surveys ask shoppers, diners and culture fans to rank local institutions, the Burlington Free Press turned to the playing field and asked which school team deserved the year's crown.

The neighbour ballots

The sibling programmes share the best-of bracket with this team vote: the Best of Business Awards from Vermont Business Magazine, the Brattleboro Reformer Readers' Choice, the Rutland Herald Best of the Best, the Seven Daysies, the Stowe Reporter Readers' Choice and the Times Argus Best of the Best.

What separates the Burlington Free Press entry is subject and shape: school athletics rather than restaurants or retailers, a single question rather than a long survey, and a window that follows the championship season into early summer. Its natural constituency is made up of students, families and boosters, a different crowd from the general readership the retail and dining surveys court.

What strengthens a campaign on a ballot shaped like this?

Supporters who want a favourite team to finish first have an advantage built into the ballot itself: the organizers printed an unlimited-voting rule, so persistence was sanctioned rather than penalised. A practical push looks like coordination, not trickery. Rally the roster, set a nightly reminder while the window is open, and send the ballot link through the channels a school community already uses, from team chats to booster newsletters.

Anyone weighing outside help should start with the organizers' own terms, then with the wider background: where paying for votes stands legally and the award-ballot service overview. Whatever route a campaign takes, the deciding figure remains the tally the poll prints at close.