The EHL was officially announced on June 6, 2013, after the Atlantic Junior Hockey League (AtJHL)[1][2] welcomed six new members from the old Eastern Junior Hockey League and the AtJHL re-branded itself under the EHL banner The league prepares high school and college aged players for possible advancement to college and professional hockey.

In December 2016, it was announced that six organizations (the Boston Bandits, Connecticut Nighthawks, Hartford Jr. Wolfpack, New Hampshire Jr.

Monarchs, New Jersey Rockets, and the Northern Cyclones) would be leaving the EHL for the 2017–18 season for the United States Premier Hockey League (USPHL).

[6] The Bandits, Rockets, and Cyclones had already been announced as adding free-to-play teams in the USPHL's National Collegiate Development Conference (NCDC) for the 2017–18 season.

The Connecticut Oilers relocated from Norwalk to Hamden following the announcement that the ownership of the USHL's Cedar Rapids RoughRiders added a team called the Connecticut RoughRiders that will play out of the Oilers' former arena in Norwalk.

The naming conventions were changed to put the emphasis on the top-level league for college development.