That explains why you now have low expectations, that's how a slippery slope works and why I don't want advertisers even getting their foot in the door. No ads on jerseys!!!
As one of the longest tenured and almost definitely the most anti-corporatist poster here, let me be the one to say: relax. Aside from the fact that every jersey in the league already has a logo on it, this seems like a futile thing to worry about.
First, to sully a thing, that thing has to have value to begin with. The jerseys in this league are not exactly works of art, by and large. Some of them have some history attached to them, but the worst thing about history is also the best: it can't be changed. That history is there no matter how many swooshes and golden arches you slap on them.
The NHL and its teams are also not art galleries. They exist chiefly—and in many if not most cases, exclusively—to make money. Winning is not the primary or even secondary mission, and neither is building loyalty, or honoring history. All of those things matter, but only insofar as they generate profit. There have been teams in every sport who found it more profitable to, say, field a lesser roster to save money on contract, or black out local broadcasts of home games, or turn their backs on their history via "rebranding." Or look at pretty much anything Daniel Snyder has ever done.
There are corporate names and insignia on stadiums, on your ticket to get into the stadium, on just about everything else you could hope to see or buy there, and if you stay home to watch on TV, you'll see ten times as many slathered across your screen over the course of the broadcast. Why is the jersey a sacred frontier? After all, what is a jersey but an advertisement for a hockey team? A hockey team that is, again, a business.
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