The ACHL would last only one season, and was notable for the early-season move of the St. Petersburg Parrots to Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Surviving franchises would later rejoin each other for the 2004–05 season in the Southern Professional Hockey League.

The Orlando Seals won the ACHL's only regular season and playoff championships.

Waronker's teams, the Jacksonville Barracudas, the Macon Trax, the Orlando Seals, and the ACHL expansion team, the Miami Manatees, joined this new league; they were joined by the Lakeland Loggerheads and the Alabama Slammers.

The Cape Fear Fire Antz and the Knoxville Ice Bears joined the SEHL with the Huntsville Channel Cats (who were also briefly an ACHL expansion team), the Tupelo T-Rex (who never played due to contractual issues with a previous professional league), and eventually the Winston-Salem T-Birds (who began the season known as the Winston-Salem Hockey Club) as the 4th team.