Poll party

Hope everyone had a great Christmas - mine was wonderful - great to have a few days off, some quality time with the family, good food and plenty of fun.

The blog will resume in fits an starts over the next week.

I'm heading into a stretch of some steady shifts at the Free Press and there's a limited schedule of games I'll be shooting.

Still, I wanted to tie up a couple loose ends.

A trio of polls closed over the past 48 hours.

The first one stunned me.

What is your favorite Christmas movie?

National Lampoon's Christmas 47%
Christmas Story 26%
Elf 11%
It's a Wonderful Life 5%
Other: 11%

NLC is funny, but Christmas Story is my pick - I watched snippets of it four or five times over the past week and it never gets old. Not sure what the 'other' picks were.

•  •  •

What is your favorite Christmas TV special?

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer 44%
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas 33%
A Charlie Brown Christmas 11%
Frosty the Snowman 11%
Other: 0%

Again, my pick didn't win - I'm a Grinch guy, but this poll had the most votes of any I've posted so far.

•  •  •

The next poll's results didn't surprise me - most people took the safe route.

Should the media name kids who are suspended from teams for breaking playing rules?

Always 13%
Often  0%
Rarely  25%
Never 63%
Don't know 0%

•  •  •

This final poll is ongoing until just before midnight on Dec. 31. To vote, click here

Best Northwestern VT sports team in 2009

BFA-Fairfax boys basketball - Division III runners-up 34%
Milton girls soccer - Division II champs 28%
Missisquoi girls hockey - Division II runners-up 10%
Missisquoi boys soccer - Division II runners-up 7%
BFA-Fairfax girls soccer - Division III runners-up 7%
BFA-Fairfax softball - Division III runners-up 7%
Milton Broncos 7/8 Youth Football - NVYFL runners-up 3%
BFA-St. Albans girls basketball - Division I runners-up 3%

Poll: Should the media name kids suspended from athletics for breaking training rules?

In the interest of full disclosure, at one time I was a full-time employee of the Burlington Free Press sports department and I currently am a 'temporary part-time' employee there. That said, I have not worked there since last Thursday and have no direct knowledge of the details on the reporting of the following story.

On Tuesday, the Free Press published a short note naming three players who allegedly were suspended from a team for allegedly drinking at a party (I know that's a lot of alledgedlies, but that's the world we live in! Also, perhaps this story first broke on some other media outlet - I only learned about it a couple of hours ago while trolling the Freeps website for sports scores and checking out their Varsity Insider blog).

At any rate, naming high school athletes who break training rules (and/or the law) can be a difficult choice for a media editor, whether in print, over the air or on the web.

(I should know, I was the sports editor of the St. Albans Messenger for a lifetime one decade. But I digress.)

On one hand, these are kids and naming them is embarassing, if not humiliating. Do media outlets name kids who break laws/rules when they are honor students or in a school play? For an underage drinking citation? Unless there were extenuating circumstances, probably not. But that doesn't mean it's right or wrong.

That said, if a journalist is given a tip about a story like this, is there is some obligation on the media outlet to report on it? One could ask if it's the journalist's job and the media outlet's obligation to report any news, regardless of the age of the people involved or whether it is embarassing? One could also ask if the incident is 'public knowledge' within a school community and it is not reported upon, is the media outlet - and/or the reporter - running the risk of losing credibility as a trusted news source?

I'm going to refrain from passing any judgment on this situation and how it was handled. As I said before I have no insight into how the Freeps learned about this particular story or any other details whatsoever and without that information I can't offer an opinion. (Moreover, even if I did have that information, I could be ethically, if not legally, prohibited from discussing those details on my blog due to my work relationship with the Freeps and its reporters.)

Instead, I merely wonder what your thoughts are on the subject.

(Hopefully, I can't get in trouble for that!)

Please vote and if you have a stong opinion, please add your comments to this poll, as well. I'd like to know how people stand on this issue and why they feel the way they do.

This poll is limited to one vote per computer per hour to discourage ballot-stuffing, but this should allow for multiple people to vote from the same computer. The poll closes at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.

Poll: Northwestern VT's best team in 2009

As I wrote last week, I thought it would be interesting to gather opinions on which Northwestern Vermont team was the best team in 2009. Obviously, this is a subjective excerise and unsceintific, but let's give it a go anyway.

Unlike my other polls, I've allowed for multiple votes from individuals using the same computer so feel free to stuff the ballot box!

The poll will remain open until 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 31.

The winning team gets ... um, to win, I guess.

Top local sports team of 2009?

In case you haven't noticed, I'm mighty partial to polls.

(For those of you counting, National Lampoon's Christmas is the leader in the favorite Christmas movie poll and The Grinch and Rudolph are tied for the favorite Christmas special poll - you can still vote until Christmas Eve.)

But I digress ...

For my next poll I need a little help in selecting the choices.

The topic is top local sports team of 2009.

The only criteria is the team must be based in northwestern Vermont (no team further south than Milton or further east than Fairfax).

Here's are the teams I can come up with right off the top of my bald little head - in no particular order.

Milton girls soccer - Division II champs

Missisquoi boys soccer - Division II runners-up

BFA-Fairfax girls soccer - Division III runners-up

Milton Broncos 7/8 Youth Football - NVYFL runners-up

BFA-Fairfax boys basketball - Division III runners-up

BFA-St. Albans girls basketball - Division I runners-up

Missisquoi girls hockey - Division II runners-up

BFA-Fairfax softball - Division III runners-up

The plan is to post the poll on Monday, so if I have missed your favorite team or if you have another suggestion, please add your comments below and give me a good reason or two to put that team in the poll.

Poll: What's your favorite Christmas movie?

Sticking with the holiday theme, I'm curious to know what is your favorite Christmas movie.

Mine is a Christmas Story.

The true test of a great movie is quotability.

It doesn't get any better than "Fuuuuuuuuuuddddddge! Only I didn't say fudge."

Although "It was ... soap ... poisioning." comes in a close second.