The Charlottetown Greens made their debut on October 19, 1983, against the Cape Breton Warriors. The Greens won 5-2 in front of a sold-out Charlottetown Arena, and rookie forward Bill Robby scored the team’s first goal in team history. He would score two more goals in that game for a hat trick. Bill would have a hot streak for the next three months until he got a season-ending injury, which the Greens went on to finish 14th.
Tension was rising between the Shawinigan Voltages owner Pierre Leflar and the city of Shawinigan as neither could come up with the funds for a new arena. To make things worse, AQHL President Paul Name had multiple talks with Pierre about his gambling problems. What even more issues between the two were Pierre Leflar decided to let go of GM Mitchell Lalime and trade away some top players for mostly cash as the team was once a favourite to go to the top of the league but hit rock bottom sort of, they won enough games to finished 13th place. In an interview, Paul said if things don’t resolve soon, he and the league would get involved, take the ownership away from Pierre, and put the team up for sale to keep them in Shawinigan or relocate elsewhere.
After losing their top goalie, Seth Taylor, to the Washington Red Tails (NIHA), the Moncton Bears rely on Shawn Metcalfe as their starter goalie in his second season; he performed very well, winning 30 of 40 games he played 10 of them were shutouts to give the Bears a first-place finish for the second season in a row with a 42-6-2 record with the total of 86 points. After missing the playoffs for three years, the Trois-Rivieres Titans are finally back in Bronz Cup contender mode, all thanks to the Minnesota Nationals (NIHA) for sending Keith Rice back to the Titans and helping them to a second-place finish, winning 20 out of 30 games with 13 shutouts. For the first time in the team’s history, the Manchester Americans finished in the top 3 with Roy Messier leading the team with 34 goals; 72 points were his best ever, but he is not the only one who led his team to the top 3, Kevin Gassoff’s 70 points (30G, 40A) performance was the key factor for the team’s 33-13-4 record, many believe that the Americans could go deep into the playoffs. Taking 4th place is the Portland Clippers their best since 1973-74 season where they finished 5th place, Clippers rookie M.J. Daigneault top the league with 94 points (35G, 59A) became the first rookie in AQHL history to be the top player of the league. Had some issues with some key players getting injured, luckily, the Fredericton Vikings would have won the last 10 games to finish 5th place. With losing Shawn Thomas being drafted to the Colorado Huskies (NIHA) and Lenny Tardif getting called up by the Edmonton Emeralds (NIHA), the Sherbrooke Loups had a hard time staying in the top 5, but they lost the last game to the Vikings as they the Loups finished 6th. After missing the playoffs last season, the Cape Breton Warriors made some key victories to finish 7th place, lead by Mike Gamble who finally broke through after 20 points from last season, this year he got 55 points (19G, 36A) to top the team stats. Last season went down badly, but this season was a nice bounce back for the Laval Tigers after winning the last five games, including beating Drummondville three times to take the 8th and final spot in the playoffs.
To round off the rest, Drummondville is 9th, Verdun is 10th, Val-d’Or is 11th, New Glasgow is 12th, Shawinigan is 13th, Charlottetown is 14th, and Rouyn-Noranda is 15th.
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