Kazakhstan Sports Palace

The Kazakhstan Sports Palace (Kazakhstan: Қазақстан спорт сарайы; Дворец спорта Казахстан) is a palace of sports located in Astana, Kazakhstan. It is mainly serves as the home of Barys Astana of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) and hosts various indoor events. It is also serves as the home for Nomad Astana and HC Astana of the Kazakhstan Hockey Championship and Snezhnye Barsy junior hockey team of the Junior Hockey League. The arena seats 4,070 spectators for ice hockey.

History
The sports palace was built from 1999 to 2001. The palace was opened by the president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev in March 6, 2001. The Kazakhstan Sports Palace is one of the first sports venues in Astana and is used for mass sport. The building contains a swimming pool, a health club, an ice hockey rink and many other amateur sports clubs. Until 2008 the hockey arena was used for multi-purpose events, such as boxing and basketball events. Nowadays, the arena serves for the home games of the Barys Astana. The sports palace also hosts President of Kazakhstan's Ice Hockey Cup, the yearly pre-season tournament for Barys Astana and teams invited by them. The sports palace was reconstructed for hosting Men's ice hockey tournament of the 2011 Asian Winter Games. Ice hockey preliminaries actually started two days before the Opening Ceremony of the Games on 30 January. The matches played in the main and newly built minor arena with 1,200 seats. Currently, the minor arena is the home arena for HC Astana of the Kazakhstan Hockey Championship. Also, it using for training and warm-up for Barys Astana team, which play their home games in the main arena.

In 2011, Kontinental Hockey League commissioners declared that this arena is one of the worst in the league. The main reason is the regrettably little capacity. Barys Astana managers have decided to build the new Barys Arena for 12,000 seats. The new Barys's home arena will open in the 2015-16 KHL season, as the KHL's president Alexander Medvede said at the press-conference during the 2014 Kontinental Hockey League All-Star Game.

Kazakhstan Sports Palace annually hosts President of the Republic of Kazakhstan's Cup, the pre-season tournament organized by Barys Astana organization and Nur Otan political party. This was first held in 2010.