Venue: Palais Omnisports Marseille Grand-Est
Town: Marseille, FR

The Palais Omnisports Marseille Grand-Est (French for 'Marseille Great Eastern Multisport Palace'), abbreviated as POMGE, is a multi-purpose arena primarily used as an ice rink, located in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. It is the home venue for ice hockey team Spartiates de Marseille. The complex also houses a skate park which, at the time of its opening, was billed as the largest such indoor installation in Europe. It was inaugurated in 2009, and is popularly known as Patinoire de la Capelette after the Marseille quarter it sits in, la Capelette. Ice availability has historically been an issue in the Marseille metropolitan area, one of the France's three largest agglomerations. A semi-permanent 56 × 26 metre rink was built at the Parc des Expositions Marseille-Chanot in the wake of the 1968 Grenoble Olympics, which introduced ice sports to the broader French public, but it was dismantled in 1974. A new ice rink, Patinoire du Rouet, opened the same year inside a repurposed fruit packing plant, but it was severely undersized at 40 × 20 metre. The facility closed in 1984 and no other venue would be active in the area until 1993, when a recreational rink measuring 46 × 20 metre opened on Avenue Jules Cantini. However it closed within two years. Another rink called Megaglace opened in 1994 near the neighbouring college town of Aix-en-Provence. Built inside an old sanitary ware retail space and measuring 42 × 20 metre, it again fell short of the standards expected from a major agglomeration. Finally in 1998, a sister facility called Megaglace 2 opened in Aubagne. Although still relatively spartan, it boasted a small stand and a 56 × 26 metre track, in compliance with minimum IIHF regulations. In March 2004, the municipality of Marseille launched preliminary consultations to give the city a suitable ice sports facility as part of a broader urban rehabilitation plan. In March 2005, the project presented by architectural firm Chabanne et partenaires was selected. Duri