These days, O’Connell reacts to the trips mostly with bemusement. Asked what he thought when he was unable to reach Udinski for days, he paused for several seconds before saying, “It depends which time you’re talking about.”
Two years ago, Udinski’s administrative role required him to be available remotely after minicamp. He drove to Colorado for a five-day hike; O’Connell tried getting him on a Zoom call to discuss training camp schedules, to no avail.
“So the next day I just said, ‘Hey, man, you OK? Thinking about you.’” O’Connell said. “Next day, ‘I know you’re on the side of a mountain somewhere. I just want to make sure you didn’t get eaten by a bear.’”
By the time his phone regained service, “I think I had 30 missed texts from 20 different people,” Udinski said. “Of course, a couple from him. Then, I scramble and try to explain everything. He’s like, ‘Well, you’ve got to tell somebody if you’re just going to go off the grid.’ So now, if I go off the grid, I let somebody know.”
The prank phone call this summer, in other words, might have been penance for whatever spike Udinski caused to O’Connell’s blood pressure two years ago.
“I couldn’t imagine myself at his age, crossing the pond, staying at hostels,” Phillips said. “If you break your ankle or something, nobody can find you; you’ve got no service. … But I would not be surprised if he lit a fire at night and was watching film.”
