Who Do You Think Will Be the Section v Ice Hockey Player of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Section V ice hockey Player of the Year vote is

The Democrat and Chronicle, the New York newspaper publishing at democratandchronicle.com, puts a single question to its readers at the end of the high school hockey season: who do you think will be the Section V ice hockey Player of the Year? Section V is the sectional classification the newspaper covers, and the ballot is framed as an opinion poll rather than a judged award, so the outcome rests entirely on the public tally.

The newspaper places the hockey question on the Crowdsignal poll at poll.fm, at the address https://poll.fm/14983597. That page carries the question, the nominee list and the running shares. On the 2025 edition the options paired each nominee with a Section V school, among them Victor, Fairport, Pittsford and Hilton, so a supporter backs a player and a programme together. When that round closed, the page showed a 43 percent share for the leading nominee, a useful sign that the tally is displayed openly rather than hidden until a reveal.

The table underneath collects the programme's fixed facts into one place.

The dated history of the Democrat and Chronicle hockey poll

Two editions of the Section V ice hockey Player of the Year vote are confirmed: 2023 and 2025. The programme is treated as annual and points to a next expected round in 2026, but no 2024 edition appears among the confirmed years, so the run has a visible gap even though the newspaper treats the question as a recurring part of its hockey coverage.

The voting window falls in January of the edition year. The 2025 ballot ran in January 2025, and by the time the page was last seen it carried a Poll Closed label, meaning that round had ended and the tally was final. The newspaper does not print an exact open day or a close day for the January window, so the precise dates confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Two further gaps sit around the window. The ballot page shows no separate nomination round before voting opens, and the newspaper publishes no calendar of platform rounds for this market, so a supporter cannot tell from the page alone when a fresh edition will appear. The practical habit is to return to the poll.fm address in January and look for a ballot without the closed label.

How a supporter votes in the Section V hockey poll today

The mechanic on the Democrat and Chronicle's hockey ballot is deliberately plain. A supporter opens the poll.fm page, reads the question asking who will be the Section V ice hockey Player of the Year, and picks among the listed options. Each option pairs a nominee with a school, so the choice is made by selecting the button beside the player a supporter wants to back, then submitting it on the same page.

Nothing else stands between the supporter and the tally. The ballot prints no sign-in step, no nomination form and no write-in box; the list of nominees is fixed by the newspaper when the round opens. Once a choice is submitted, the page reflects the selection and the shares update across the field, which is how the 43 percent leading share became visible when the 2025 round closed.

The one thing the page leaves open is repetition. The Democrat and Chronicle prints no rule on how many times one person may take part in the hockey poll, and no eligibility text appears beside the ballot. A supporter who wants to return on later days of the January window should watch the current page: if the newspaper applies any restriction, it would show up there, either as a changed message after voting or as a closed label once the round ends.

How this ballot sits beside its New York neighbours

The Democrat and Chronicle hockey vote is one of several New York fan-vote programmes of this shape. Its closest neighbours on this site are the Buffalo News Prep Talk Girls Athlete of the Week, the Hudson Valley New York High School Football Player of the Week, the lohud Boys Basketball Player of the Week and the Lohud Girls Basketball Player of the Week, plus the statewide New York High School Football Player of the Week and the New York Section 1 High School Football Player of the Week.

Two differences set the hockey ballot apart. Every neighbour is a weekly series that names a new honouree each cycle during a fall or winter sport season, while the Democrat and Chronicle programme is a single season-end question that crowns a Player of the Year for Section V hockey once the season closes. The neighbours also answer to different publishers, from the Buffalo News to the lohud newsroom, so rules and windows differ from page to page even where the platform matches.

The practical upshot for a supporter comes down to timing. A weekly ballot rewards a fast push inside a short window, while this hockey poll rewards a sustained push across the whole January round, because the tally stays open and visible until the newspaper closes it.

Strengthening support in the Section V hockey vote

Because the Democrat and Chronicle ballot asks for nothing more than a reader click, the support that moves the tally is the kind a school community can organize itself: the hockey families, the student body and local followers sharing the poll.fm address directly during the January window. The 2025 page showed the shares openly, so progress is visible to everyone a campaign reaches, which itself encourages repeat visits from the same circle.

On the question of outside help, the Democrat and Chronicle has published nothing for this hockey ballot, so nobody can quote a rule either permitting or banning organized voting pushes here. What is true generally is that an organizer can void votes it judges irregular, and the safest ground is support that comes from real people who genuinely want to back the nominee. Readers weighing paid help can compare options at our award votes page, and should weigh any organizer rule before spending.

Whatever route a campaign takes, the January window is the only period in which votes count, and the closed label on the 2025 ballot shows the newspaper ends the round decisively.