NHL heavily hinting at jersey sponsorship patches coming soon. Hockey Twitter/Bloggers collectively lost their minds. (Except for our own Mr. Joe Yerdon, who dislocated his shoulder patting himself on the back for calling this over two months ago.)
This move doesn't surprise me, and most AHL teams have had some form of jersey sponsorship for years (or decades). The Chicago Wolves have had Kia, Grand Rapids Griffins with Cintas, Milwaukee Admirals with the Milwaukee Brewers, Toronto Marlies with McDonalds, etc. Most of the patches are no bigger than a 3x5 index card, with most being much smaller than that.
NHL teams dabbled with this by having their teams wear similarly sized patches on their practice jerseys, of which the bloggers/writers lost their minds but I never read negative backlash from fans. Maybe they didn't complain because they haven't seen the jerseys in use since the jerseys are for practice only.
If the NHL adopts the AHL teams methods of jersey patches, no one is going to care in a few years.
Plus, sponsorship patches will make spotting game worn jerseys a hell of a lot easier.