Fourteen nations would qualify for the Olympic tournament, eight to the preliminary round, and six to the first round. The IIHF used the standings of the 1999 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships to determine qualification. First, the top six nations from Pool A would go directly to the first round. The preliminary round was made up of the nations ranked seventh and eighth, along with six others from a series of qualification tournaments. The nations ranked nine through twelve went straight to the final qualification round, with all other participants playing through pre-qualification tournaments.
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Regional Qualification
Two Regional qualifiers were used to thin the field for Pre-Qualification to sixteen nations.
Played September 3–5, 1999 in Aomori, Japan.
Played December 11–12, 1999 in Sofia Bulgaria. Croatia should have played as well, but the proper application was accidentally not sent to the IIHF.
Olympic Pre-Qualification
Four tournaments were played February 10–13, 2000, with the winner of each advancing to the final qualification round.
Played in Ljubljana, Slovenia
Played in Tallinn, Estonia
Played in Gdańsk, Poland
Played in Copenhagen, Denmark
Final Olympic Qualification
Two tournaments were played February 8–11, 2001, with 6 of the remaining 8 nations qualifying for the Olympics.
Played in Oslo, Norway
Played in Klagenfurt, Austria