He might not know exactly when or where his team will play its first playoff game, but Oregon High Desert Storm head coach Keith Evans is confident that before the end of August, the Storm will play again in Central Oregon.

One of three teams to make the playoffs in the American West Football Conference, the Storm are scrambling to find a place to play after scheduling conflicts with Redmond’s First Interstate Bank Center — where the Storm played their home games this summer — are leaving the first-year arena football team without a place to play.

“We are working on a couple of things,” Evans said. “We are going to play the game locally. Something will happen on the 28th.”

One option was to move the playoff game to Nampa, Idaho, where the Desert Storm’s opponent the Idaho Horsemen play their home games, but there was also a scheduling conflict with the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa.

The playoff game, Evans said, will likely be held outdoors as opposed to being played indoors as the arena football team has done all year. Another new wrinkle to the playoff game will be the absence of a wall that surrounds the playing field.

“We are going to mark off our dimensions,” Evans said. “There will be no walls involved. We have to play this game to fulfill the obligations to go play Tri-Cities (Wash.).”

As soon as a venue and date are set, tickets for the playoff game will be available. The winner will play at the Tri-City Rush in the AWFC championship game at a later date to be announced.

The scheduling issue is something the AWFC is hoping to avoid in the future. Because of COVID-19, the season was pushed back to start in early May, while in a typical year it would start in late February.

—Bulletin staff report