Stokes, a former Kiwi rugby league international, coaches Whitehaven in the professional rugby league Co-operative Championship, with the last shooting taking place outside Recreation Ground, where the side plays their home games.
While Stokes has two years to run on his contract, he told NZPA he had thoughts of home when the gunman let loose, with his good friend Gary Purdham among those to die.
Mr Purdham, who Stokes had coached at Workington Town, was trimming hedges with his uncle in the village of Gosforth jwhen gunman Derrick Bird drove past, wound down his car window and blasted him.
His 30-year-old brother Rob captains Harlequins side in London and has been capped five times for England.
"He was was shot point blank. It's very tragic," Stokes told NZPA.
While there had been media reports about the shootings, saying where the gunman was, Mr Purdham would have been in the fields, and had no idea what was going on, Stokes said.
With the Recreation Ground cordoned off by police, and the town in mourning, practice was abandoned tonight.
Neither Stokes nor his wife Deb, who works in Workington, were in Whitehaven when the shooting started.
Stokes, who was in nearby Cockermouth, heard about it from his manager, by phone.
"I wasn't in the area, thank God. I knew there was something wrong, I rang my manager and he said 'someone's just been shoot. It escalated from there."
Former Kiwi Motu Tony was not in town when the shootings took place, as he commutes the three hours from Hull.
The rampage was Britain's deadliest mass shooting since 1996.
The body of the suspected gunman, 52-year-old Bird, was found in woods near Boot, a hamlet popular with hikers and vacationers in England's hilly, scenic Lake District. Two weapons were recovered.
Cantabrian Stokes coached Canterbury and Wellington in New Zealand, He is also the coach of the Serbian national side. He represented New Zealand in one test match.
His son Ben plays for Durham in the County Championship and has represented England at under-19 level.
