Down on the Farm: Iowa's season halted suddenly after lengthy road trip

When the NHL hit the pause button on the season last month, it was especially difficult for the Minnesota Wild, which was playing some of its best hockey of the season and appeared poised to make a serious push for the postseason down the stretch.

That may yet happen.

But hitting pause had a trickle down effect as well.

Not long after, the American Hockey League also decided to halt games for the time being because of COVID-19.

The stoppage was needed and was absolutely the right call in terms of public safety, but that hasn't made it any easier for those involved to wonder if they'll be able to see the 2019-20 season through to its finish.

In Iowa, that season had/has the potential to last for quite a bit longer. The Wild's AHL affiliate was second in the Central Division when the season stopped, and was tied for the second-most points in the league.

All of this coming on the heels of a run to the second round of the Calder Cup Playoffs last season. Iowa was/is a team motivated to build on last year, but now must play the waiting game to see if it will have a chance to compete for a championship.

"Nobody expected we would be where we're at right now," said Iowa coach Tim Army. "

The final week of play before the pause was an unusual one for Iowa, which spent two weeks on the road before the season was halted.

That included a few days in San Jose, California, which was where the first inklings of change for the sports world began to take shape.

A week before the NHL season stopped, Minnesota was also in San Jose, where Santa Clara County health officials advised against large gatherings, including Sharks games at SAP Center. It was one of the first of its kind around the country.

Iowa was there to play the San Jose Barracuda just 24 hours prior before taking off for Winnipeg and a two-game series against the Manitoba Moose, a series they played while Minnesota was on its California road swing.

As the situation in the Bay Area began to garner national news, and the pandemic began to spread in other areas as well, it certainly wasn't far from the minds of Iowa athletic trainer Masa Takaiwa.

Iowa's players and coaches, who fly commercial, were handed disinfecting wipes to clean seats, tray tables and arm rests days before this practice became the national norm.

Once in Winnipeg, Army wiped down all the common surfaces in his hotel room, including the remote, desk tops and counters, per instructions from Takaiwa.

"For the first time ever, I was wiping down my desk, my phone, the remote, all that type of stuff," Army said.

Army credited Takaiwa for insisting on those safety measures, many of which were put in place a couple of weeks earlier when the flu went through the locker room.

"We were conscious of it for sure," Army said. "Keeping everything clean, keeping our distance. We were patient with it, but we were sort of business as usual."

Still, the magnitude of things did hit until the team finished its marathon trip in Grand Rapids, Michigan on March 11 that the full gravity of the situation took hold.

The team flew into Grand Rapids late Monday night, March 9th, and it was on the bus from the airport to the hotel that Army said he first learned that Santa Clara County had barred fans from attending Sharks games.

"That's where it started to become a little more present, because we had just been there," Army said. "That made it real."

By game day on Wednesday, news reports continued the escalation of the severity of the situation on a national scale. Players with significant others back in Des Moines received texts saying all of the toilet paper was off the shelves.

Already eager to get home after two weeks on the road, Army said the anxiety was palpable leading into the game.

That night, Iowa lost 4-1 to Grand Rapids. When players and coaches boarded the bus to head home, news broke of an NBA player testing positive for coronavirus and that it was suspending its season indefinitely.

At that point, it became quite clear which direction things were headed, which made for a long bus ride home.

"For 95 percent of our society, I don't think anybody could have expected us to be where we are now," Army said. "Even at that, it might just be a couple of days and we'll be playing on Sunday [March 15]. You don't know what's going to transpire. You're hoping it's going to be a 48-hour thing because you just don't know the magnitude of it."

It quickly became apparent that people around the globe were going to be spending several weeks and months battling the coronavirus, putting large sections of society on hold.

And while that is certainly the right decision from a public safety standpoint, it leaves Army and the players in Iowa eager for any kind of potential return to the ice, whenever it is deemed safe to return.

"We're really happy, thrilled, with the type of year that we've had," Army said. "To this point, we've had a great year. We love our team, love the way we play, love the way we play together. We've battled through our call-ups, our injuries and we've kept finding ways to win games.

"We're right there. Our goal has been to chase down Milwaukee for the division title and that remains our goal. You want an opportunity to come back and play. You look at where we're at and you want an opportunity to finish it."