Three teams attempted to qualify for the two remaining spots in the 2009 IIHF Inline Hockey World Championship Division I tournament. The other six nations automatically qualified based on their results from the 2008 Championship and 2008 Division I tournaments. Chinese Taipei qualified as the Asian-Oceanian qualifier.[1]South Africa qualified after defeating Namibia on aggregate in a best-of-two qualification series.[1] The games were held on 24 and 30 August 2008 in Namibia and South Africa with South Africa winning the first 3–2 and tying the second 1–1.[1]
Australia - Finished fourth in 2008 World Championship Division I[2]
Austria - Relegated from the 2008 World Championship[3]
Brazil - Finished third in 2008 World Championship Division I[2]
Eight participating teams were placed in the following two groups. After playing a round-robin, the top two teams advance to the Qualifying round where they face-off against the two last-placed teams of the Groups A and B from the Top Division tournament for a chance to participate in the Top Division playoffs.[4] Teams finishing second through to fourth advance to the Playoff round.
Austria and Brazil advanced to the qualifying round after finishing first in Group C and Group D respectively.[5] Austria faced off against Canada, who finished last in Group A of the Top Division tournament, and Brazil was drawn against Slovakia, who finished last in Group B of the Top Division tournament, for a chance to participate in the Top Division playoffs.[6][7] Both Austria and Brazil lost their matches and advanced to the Division I playoffs, while Canada and Slovakia advanced to the Top Division playoffs.[7]
Austria and Brazil advanced to the playoff round after losing their qualifying round matches. They were seeded alongside the six other teams of the tournament based on their results in the preliminary round. The four winning quarterfinalists advanced to the semifinals while the losing teams moved on to the relegation round.[8] In the relegation round Chinese Taipei and South Africa lost their games to Australia and Japan respectively and were relegated to the continental qualifications.[8] In the semifinals Great Britain defeated Brazil and Austria beat Hungary, both advancing to the gold medal game.[8] After losing the semifinals Brazil and Hungary played off for the bronze medal with Brazil winning 4–3.[8] Austria defeated Great Britain 2–1 in the gold medal game and earned promotion to the 2010 IIHF Inline Hockey World Championship.[8]
Austria's Raphael Herburger scored six goals and eight assists in his six games
List shows the top skaters sorted by points, then goals. If the list exceeds 10 skaters because of a tie in points, all of the tied skaters are shown. Games from the qualifying round do not count towards the Division I statistics.[10]
Bernhard Starkbaum of Austria finished as the leading goaltender with a save percentage of 96.70
Only the top five goaltenders, based on save percentage, who have played at least 40% of their team's minutes are included in this list. Games from the qualifying round do not count towards the Division I statistics.[11]
