CORBIN BALDWIN - THE GRAVEDIGGER
Mar 9, 2014By Tom Witosky
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THE GRAVEDIGGER
There are a lot of worse things to do for a living than dropping the gloves on the ice and fighting an opponent.
Just ask second-year Iowa Wild defenseman Corbin Baldwin, who had an assortment of part-time summer jobs as he worked his way through junior hockey.
“It was the summer after my first year playing in Spokane,” Baldwin said in an interview. “I had gone back home to Winnipeg and got a summer job working at the local cemetery.”
The 6-foot, 5-inch, 215 pound Winnipeg native said that his main job that summer was “to collect dirt and fill in the holes” or put more simply, a gravedigger.
But Baldwin’s real-life lesson about the benefits of playing professional hockey as opposed to dealing with graves came on the day a sinkhole developed on the cemetery grounds.
“It was really wet that summer and one day there was a sinkhole that developed in the cemetery,” Baldwin remembered. “It collapsed and you could just smell the dead bodies. It wasn’t the best thing.”
After spending the rest of day filling in the hole, Baldwin knew becoming a professional hockey player might be better way to make a living and for now, that is just what he is doing.
The 23-year-old defenseman began the 2013-14 season as the 7th defenseman for the Wild, but injuries to various defenseman as well as occasional call-ups to Minnesota forced Coach Kurt Kleinendorst to use Baldwin a lot more than the Wild coach anticipated at the start of the season.
“He is one of those guys, because of all of the injuries we have been having, he has been playing a lot,” Kleinendorst said. “He has grown a lot, but he has a lot of development left.”
So far, Baldwin has failed to register his first AHL point, but Kleinendorst said his contribution can be seen in his -1 rating after nearly 50 games of AHL hockey this season and more than 100 penalty minutes.
“He has done a nice job for us,” Kleinendorst said. “Baldy has great reach and good presence out there. It all works to his advantage.”
Baldwin is not happy with his lack of scoring. “I should probably have a couple of points by now,” he said. “But, I’ll do whatever it takes to help the team whether that is blocking a shot or fighting.”
That kind of contribution was evident recently when Baldwin squared off with Rockford center Brad Mills midway through the first period on Feb. 25 with the Wild trailing 1-0. At that point, the Wild had played sluggishly and given up a goal with less than a minute into the game.
Baldwin dropped the gloves with Mills hoping to get the Wild into the game. Less than a minute later, Iowa scored a tying goal.
“We weren’t playing very good at the time. I thought it might spark the team to get going from the slow start we had,” Baldwin said. “I don’t go looking for a fight, but if it is there, I am not going to back down from too many guys.”
Ironically, one of guys who became a regular fight opponent in the Canadian juniors Western Hockey League is now one of Baldwin’s teammates – Josh Caron.
Baldwin said he and Caron fought three times when he played for the Spokane Chiefs and Caron played for the Kamloops Blazers. One of the fights turned out to be a near three minute donnybrook with both players remaining on their feet the entire time.
“We had fought once before that time when he came up to me and ask me to fight in Spokane. But this one was different. I decided to see how this goes and fight him as much as I could,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin said that he will give Caron “a narrow win” in that fight, but said now they just laugh about it.
“He likes to talk about it because he ended up with a narrow win. We laugh about the fact that we fought so many times in junior hockey,” he said.
Baldwin said he has set no real timetable for his hockey career. He said that he knows he has to improve his skating as well as how he handles the puck both in the defensive and offensive ends.
“My entire game has to be better,” he said. “I need to improve on being strong in my own end and as well as being a guy that the team can rely on.”
Baldwin said that he also hopes to help Iowa try to finish the season in the playoffs – a challenge that has become difficult with injuries to key players and the call-ups of players to Minnesota.
“We still have to find a way to win games and I think we can,” he said. “We have to find a way to keep it going as best we can.”
While he doesn’t think much about what lays ahead after hockey, Baldwin said that he is interested in becoming involved in agricultural business. That’s because his grandfather and father ran a dairy farm with about 200 cows until Baldwin turned eight-years old and the family moved to the city.
“I remember those days and how much I liked being on the farm,” he said. “I am not quite a farm kid, but not a full city boy either.”
But for now, Baldwin is quite content playing for the Wild and has every intention of making the most of the experience.
“The ultimate goal is to make it to the NHL, but I also know this,” Baldwin said. “As long as I can make a living playing hockey that is what I want to do.”
After all, it’s better than digging graves.