The AIHL is a semi-professional league that is contested by ten franchised teams in two conferences spanning six Australian states and territories.

Adelaide Avalanche finished first in both years after the regular season, with the Sydney Bears winning the Goodall Cup in the 2001 playoffs.

The following season, in 2004, the West Sydney Ice Dogs won their first Goodall Cup after defeating the Newcastle North Stars in the final.

In 2005 the AIHL expanded to eight teams with the Central Coast Rhinos and the Brisbane Blue Tongues joining the league.

[3] The North Stars went on to win their second consecutive Goodall Cup title, defeating Adelaide for the second year in a row.

[1] The 2007 AIHL season opened with the Avalanche and the Blue Tongues announcing the signing of former NHL players Mel Angelstad and Tyrone Garner respectively.

Newcastle North Stars went on to win the 2008 Goodall Cup, defeating West Sydney Ice Dogs in the final.

[1] In 2009 the Central Coast Rhinos left the league after refusing to accept the AIHL's new licensing model and went on to join the newly formed Australian International Ice Hockey Cup.

[7] 2009 also saw the Goodall Cup withdrawn from the AIHL by Ice Hockey Australia so it could return to being a state contested tournament.

[1] Melbourne Ice went back-to-back and won the H. Newman Reid Trophy and the Goodall Cup in 2011, defeating the Newcastle Northstars in the grand final.

[11] For season 2012, with the addition of a ninth team, the AIHL implemented a conference system for the first time in the league's history.

[12] To further assist with team travel costs, the AIHL signed a one-year partnership agreement with Virgin Australia to become the league's preferred airline partner.

Melbourne ice won the grand final 4–3, thanks to Lliam Webster who scored the winning goal, over the Northstars to claim the Goodall Cup for a third straight time, completing the first three-peat in AIHL history.

In February 2014, AIHL founding team, Canberra Knights, folded operations after 33 years with owner, John Raut, citing financial costs, lack of local player talent and sustained poor performances as the reasons for the decision.

[27][28] After the 2014 season, the AIHL made important decisions at their AGM in December 2014 to reject, for undisclosed reasons, the Central Coast Rhinos application to re-join the league and allow the Gold Coast Blue Tongues' licence to expire, after two years of suspension with the team unable to secure financing to build a proposed new rink or relocate to an appropriate alternative facility.

Between 2015 and 2018, the league experienced game rule changes, exhibition matches in Queensland, the loss of the premier Sydney ice rink and team relocations.

Different health measures and border restrictions domestically and internationally made it unviable to run seasons in 2020 and 2021.

[41][42][43] In 2021, AIHL Commissioner, David Turik, resigned from the role by “mutual agreement”, no reasons for his departure were disclosed.

[45] The league released information of a new board of directors and executive team as well as the adoption of a new finals format and increase to game lengths.

[46][47] The League also announced a new license holder for the Adelaide Adrenaline franchise, headed by Benny Gebert and Glen Foll.

[46] Internationally, the league signed a three-year contract with Swiss-based multi-national Sportradar to distribute AIHL broadcasting in North America and Europe.

[48] Preparations for the 2022 season were disrupted by the withdrawals of the Perth Thunder and Adelaide Adrenaline due to continued state border restrictions and disagreements with rink management respectively.

On 11 February 2020, the AIHL announced the league would be adopting the international standard sixty minutes match length.

The top two teams from the AIHL regular season play-off in the major semi-final for an automatic spot in the Sunday afternoon Goodall Cup final.

The Goodall Cup has been re-instated by the AIHL as its finals tournament trophy and as the prize signifying Australian champions of ice hockey.

As of 2018, the Cup was re-purposed as the award to the winning team of the Australian Ice Hockey League All-Star Game.

The trophy is named after Australian ice hockey advocate, Mick McCormack, who is the CEO of APA Group.

Recipients of the Mick McCormack Cup include Pat O’Kane from the Melbourne Mustangs (2015), Michael Dorr of Perth Thunder (2016), and Dominic Jalbert of CBR Brave (2017).

[60] The Reid Trophy was backdated to 2008 including minor premiers the Sydney Bears (2008) and the Newcastle North Stars (2009 & 2010).

References: [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70] [71] [72] [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] [84] Damien Ketlo, the 2017 save percentage leader, became a contestant on Big Brother Canada season 7 and mentioned Australian hockey in episode 22.