This was the first year of the Pool B tournament which saw Japan win the Pool with a 7–1 final game victory over Norway to promote them to the World Championship.

A third tier was played as well (called 2000 B Qualification) with six nations in Székesfehérvár, Hungary.

Group B contained the seven teams that failed to qualify for the main World Championships through the Qualification Process and Japan.

The teams played each other once in a single round robin format.

[1] Six additional nations played in two regional qualifiers for entry into the 2000 world championship group B.