Jamestown coach Joe Coombs makes his feelings known on the bench during a Rebels’ NAHL League game at Northwest Arena. P-J photo by Matt Spielman

Nineteen years ago, Joe Coombs was a 26-year-old trying to decide whether or not to hang up his skates and join the coaching ranks when terrorists turned commercials airliners into flying bombs and attacked the United States.

The 9-11 attacks severely affected the start of amateur and professional hockey seasons that fall.

Now as the head coach of the Jamestown Rebels, Coombs is having to deal with a new reality — a worldwide pandemic ending the North American Hockey League season.

“I certainly know that was a different feeling. That was unique in its own way,” Coombs said Friday afternoon shortly after wrapping up meetings with his staff. “There is so much with this I do not understand. You understood 9-11. We got attacked. This is like ‘What’s going on?'”

The NAHL paused its regular season last Thursday due to the coronavirus. At the time, Jamestown had three two-game weekend series remaining in its season for a possibility of 12 points in the standings. Coincidentally the Rebels were also 12 points out of the final East Division playoff spot.

“I don’t think we were totally out of it. We had six left. We played our best hockey during the second half of the year,” Coombs said. “At the end, we were close. We were (10-7) in our last 17 games. We had turned the corner. We were in every game.”

But on Tuesday NAHL Commissioner Mark Frankenfeld announced that Jamestown and the rest of the league wouldn’t get a chance to finish the regular season or play for a Robertson Cup when he canceled the remainder of the season.

“The NAHL and its Board of Governors did everything in our power to preserve a modified playoff and Robertson Cup Finals to ensure our players had every opportunity to compete for, and win, a Robertson Cup Championship,” Frankenfeld said in a statement. “The latest CDC recommendation of cancelling all events of 50 or more people during the next eight weeks made that really impossible without dramatically disrupting the rest of our hockey calendar. All NAHL teams will move forward with their tryout camp schedule, which is currently outside the CDC window.”

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The cancellation will affect three Rebels players more than the rest.

Center Eric Olson, the team’s captain, forward Noah Finstrom and goaltender Noah West are completing their fourth years of junior hockey and are not eligible for another season.

“We have had an incredible and memorable 2019-20 season up until this point, so this is a very sad day for everyone associated with the NAHL. We share that disappointment with all of our teams, parents, billet families, staff, sponsors and fans,” Frankenfeld said in the league’s statement. “However, the biggest disappointment we have today is for our players. They are the backbone of the NAHL and we are blessed to have some incredible players and talent in our league. However, the safety of our hockey community, including all of our players, is our top priority and the decision to cancel the remainder of the season was necessary and in the best interest of everyone involved.”

West, who went 15-23-0-1 with a 2.61 goals against average and a .919 save percentage this season has already committed to NCAA Division I Robert Morris University next fall.

“I know he played really well the first 10 games of the year. … Against Topeka we lost 1-0 and the shots were 32-12,” Coombs said. “It could’ve been 10-0. We weren’t giving him support.”

In two years with the Rebels, West won 27 games and earned five shutouts with a combined .916 save percentage.

“There were too many nights where we expected goalies to score goals,” Coombs added. “Goalies don’t score. He did very well for the situation he was in.”

Olson took on the captaincy this season with the Rebels, his third year in the organization. He finished with 18 goals and 18 assists to push his career totals to 28 goals and 36 assists in 120 NAHL games.

“Olson was a good captain and would’ve ended up with 20 goals. That’s a big year in our league,” Coombs said. “I think he did himself a lot of favors, but a lot of time didn’t get a lot of help.”

Finstrom scored 16 goals with 26 assists for a team-high 42 points this season for Jamestown. He was also in his third season with the organization, finishing with 25 goals and 51 assists in 129 games.

“They all say they want to go to school, but our group didn’t understand that they needed one another. If you don’t play well and I do, you are hurting me,” Coombs said. “Way too often with our group, there were people (recruiting) in the building, and we were (not good).”

Coombs was unsure of college plans for Olson and Finstrom acknowledging they can easily play NCAA Division III hockey if Division I opportunities don’t pan out.

“If they choose to play DIII hockey they both know where they are going. They aren’t going to be empty-handed,” he said. “There are also some opportunities at the DI level, but the lack of recruiting without any kids on campus, they can’t do much of anything. This is just affecting our business in a way that is unprecedented.”

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With just four players returning to the Rebels at the start of the season, Coombs knew it would be a rebuilding year.

Early on, the team struggled integrating new pieces and fell to the bottom of the East Division.

“When we got here two years ago, we had very few returning players. I felt we got off to the right start in the community, but we made an awful lot of transactions to do that,” Coombs said. “You can’t keep doing that and expecting success. You have to build through the draft. You can’t just loot your whole team and keep acquiring the right pieces.”

But by the midpoint of the season, the team began to play better and inched closer to the middle of the pack — even beginning to think realistically about sneaking into the playoffs.

“We decided to just let nature take its course and hopefully build players, let them mature and do their things,” Coombs said. “We were out of the playoffs, but I think some guys were making really good strides. … It’s left us in a good position to be a strong, Robertson Cup-contending team next season.”

Coombs mentioned forwards Tyler German and Jordan Cormier as just two of several players who progressed this season and give him hope heading into the 2020-21 season.

“We are in the market for a goaltender, a defenseman or two and I think we need three forwards,” Coombs said. “Last year we had 19 holes and this year we are looking at five right now. I think certainly five is a much more manageable number than 19.”

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Now comes the difficult task of filling holes in the roster without being able to watch amateur players finish their seasons around the country — either in person or on video.

“These are uncharted waters. We have a list from Mike Mondoux (director of scouting and player personnel) that we are working off of for new players, but we can’t get our hands on them because there is no hockey,” Coombs said. “It’s different. We are going to pick up the phone, continue to call kids and continue to work hard so that when this does end we are extremely prepared.”

In addition to the NAHL canceling the remainder of the season, the league also announced that all 2020 NAHL Combines, the Prep Invitational in Chicago in late March, and the 18U Top Prospects Tournament in Blaine, Minnesota in May have been suspended.

In the coming weeks, the league will announce its 2019-20 season awards. The 2020 NAHL Draft is currently scheduled to take place online at nahl.com on Tuesday, June 2.

Development camps might also be delayed or canceled altogether depending on when medical professionals and government agencies say it’s safe to congregate and get back to everyday life.

“We just sat down and said ‘We have two camps.’ Who’s coming to camp right now? Nobody. Who’s signing up? Nobody,” Coombs said. “This is crazy. My instructions to our staff were to pick up the phone, work and be ready. Whether it’s the 15th of April, the 15th of May or the 15th of June, we’ve got to be ready to go.”