It was founded by Ray Miron and Bill Levins and later sold to Global Entertainment Corporation, which operated the league from 2000 to 2013, at which point it was purchased by the individual franchise owners.

As of the end of its final season in 2014, three of the 30 National Hockey League teams had affiliations with the CHL: the Dallas Stars, Minnesota Wild, and Tampa Bay Lightning.

Miron had been general manager of the Colorado Rockies (now the New Jersey Devils), and had briefly been president of the previous Central Hockey League in 1976.

In the inaugural 1992–93 season the league had six teams, including the Oklahoma City Blazers, the Tulsa Oilers, the Wichita Thunder, the Memphis RiverKings, the Dallas Freeze and the Fort Worth Fire.

Brad Treliving, who co-founded the WPHL in 1996, became CHL commissioner following the merger, before leaving to join the Phoenix Coyotes.

In October 2013, the Central Hockey League was purchased from Global Entertainment by all the team owners, putting the CHL business model in line with that of the NHL and AHL.