want to be out there on the ice with his teammates. And who could blame him.
"I should be out there," Mika thought. "I shouldn't be just standing here watching my teammates shoot the puck around."
Karelia looked up at his master and could see the frustration hiding behind the disappointment in his ice blue eyes. He, too, wanted to get out there and chase the puck around just like he usually did whenever Mika would go to a certain pond when it froze over in the winter and practice there on his own. Unfortunately, Karelia often kept sliding on the ice whenever he chased the puck, often ending up in a snowbank. Needless to say, he did not like that at all. Especially when he went in too deep and Mika would end up digging him out with a shovel.
Against his usual instincts, Karelia decided not to venture out onto the ice and try to chase after any puck flying around. With the speeds that they were traveling at, there was always a risk of injury, especially since protection for even the players wasn't anything to brag about, even with padding.

That evening, Mika just sat on the couch, with Karelia taking a nap next to him. Kevin and Rikko hadn't come home from work yet, so the Finn and his dog has the place all to themselves. All the while, Mika kept thinking about how quickly things had change for him in the past few days, wondering how he was ever gonna pull through. He knew he would have to find a way to do so somehow. But he wasn't sure how. But it wasn't like he needed to come up with something right away. This was easily one of those things that could take time to work out. He needed not to panic.

The next day, Mika had taken Karelia out for a walk. That morning, they had already gone for a run, but that was hours ago, and Karelia was itching to get out for more. A walk was what the malamute puppy and his owner decided to take.
As they made a turn into a more run-down section, something caught Mika's eye. On a fenced-in area, some inner-city kids were playing a game of basketball on a blacktop court. Mika remembered occasionally seeing such games going on during his first time living in Detroit, but he never really showed much interest, as hockey was his main sporting obsession. This time, however, he was intrigued, having remembered seeing it before.
"So, you've seen this game played before?" Karelia asked.
"Yes, I have, but it's been a few years," Mika responded.
"And you want to have a closer look, eh?" Karelia asked again.
"Yes," Mika replied.
"Well, what are we waiting for?! Let's go!" Karelia exclaimed with delight.
Mika and Karelia crossed the street to where the court was and walked up to the fence to watch. The players were mostly dark-skinned kids, but there were some light-skinned kids in there. As he arrived at the fence, Mika put his left arm up on the fence with his elbow at a 90-degree turn. At one point during the game, the ball bounced over to where Mika and Karelia were standing. One of the black kids in the game ran after the ball, which stopped upon contact with the fence. As the kid grabbed the ball to pick it up, he saw Mika's hiking shoes, dark blue Wrangler jeans and black leather jacket. He then looked up to see who was wearing them, and upon seeing the face of their wearer, instantly recognized the face. And there was certainly no mistaking whom that blonde mullet belonged to.
"You're," the boy stuttered in surprise at what he was seeing. "You're Mika Kykalisko!"
Mika then nodded in acknowledgement.
"Boys, come on!" the kid at the fence called out to the other players. "Everybody over here! Look! It's Mika Kykalisko!"
By now, Mika had become well-known throughout Detroit and the state of Michigan, especially among his fellow Finnish-speakers, most of whom lived in the Upper Peninsula. Mika lived there for a little more than three years in between his stays in Detroit and Nome. But even those who weren't Finnish or of Finnish decent had heard his name and recognized who it belonged to.
"Hey, can Karelia and I watch you guys play?" Mika asked.
"Yeah!" most of the kids replied simultaneously, some even gesturing "Come on in!".
With that, Mika grinned and motioned to Karelia to follow him into the fenced-in area.
The game went on for a while, but Mika wasn't worried about the time, as he had all afternoon free. He actually had a good time watching these kids play a game he barely knew anything about. It gave him a chance to free up his mind from all the tumultuous events that had happened to him during the past few days. Karelia, meanwhile, just enjoyed being out in the sun, although he was getting the urge to chase the ball whenever it rolled out of the hands of one of the players' hands. Whenever the ball bounced out of bounds right where Mika and Karelia were sitting, usually one of them would pass it back in. One time, the ball almost hit Mika in the head, prompting him to pull his head of the way and say, "Whoa! Right there, basket's that way, chief! Yeah!" Another time, Karelia jumped up and bumped it back inbounds right off the tip of his nose. The player who first noticed Mika watching the game, who would later reveal his name to be Jamal, caught the pass with both hands and was in shock as far as who passed it to him. He knew it couldn't have been Mika because he knew about his shoulder being busted up and immobile.
"Did your dog just do that?" Jamal asked.
"I think he did," said Mika. "I didn't see all that happened."
"Your dog jumped up and knocked the ball back into play," Jamal continued.
"No way!" Mika said in shock. He then turned to Karelia and said, "Did you do that?"
Karelia nodded.
"Holy crap," said the Finn, looking very confused and disillusioned. "I didn't know he could do that. I mean, he sometimes chases stray hockey pucks whenever I practice on this one frozen pond in the winter whenever I practice on my own. But he never jumped up and caught a ball before. At least I've never seen him do it before."
"If the only the hoop were lower," said another kid who was among those on the court, "he could score a basket."
"Well, he is only five months old," Mika answered back. "Wait until he's full grown, then he could probably score one in the hoop at its full height."
"I'm sure he could," said Jamal.
Eventually, the game resumed. It went on for a few hours longer before many of them had to go home for dinner. Mika and Karelia were just about to head home when Kevin pulled up near the basketball court in his Model T.
"Where've you been, man?" Kevin asked, sounding less than thrilled about Mika disappearing for as long as he did.
"I took Karelia for a walk, saw these kids playing a basketball game, went over to watch, which I was only going to do briefly," Mika explained in the best way he knew, "but somehow one of them recognized me and drew everyone else over to the fence. I asked if Karelia and I could watch them play, and they invited us inside to watch. Oh, and get this. At one point, the ball bounced to where Karelia was sitting, and he just jumped up and knocked the ball back inbounds with his nose!"
Kevin's jaw dropped.
"What?!" he exclaimed. "Are you pulling my leg?!"
"Why the hell would I do that?" Mika asked, confused that his good friend and roommate didn't believe him. And also not knowing that "pulling my leg" was a figure of speech. Then again, he had never heard the phrase before, so he didn't know what it was, let alone what it meant.
"Seriously, when have I ever lied to you, Kevinator?" Mika asked again, calling Kevin by a nickname he had used for him since they became good friends.
"I don't remember," Kevin replied after being silent for a few seconds. "Oh well, I guess I'll believe it when I see it."
"Say, Mika," said Jamal after he came up to where was leaning on the door of Kevin's car. "If you want to, after you get the cast off your shoulder, you're welcome to play a game with us."
"Thank you, Jamal," Mika responded. "It won't be for a while, though. I've got almost two months left before it comes off."
"Okay, man," said Jamal. "Hope it heals."
"It will," said Mika. "The doctor said it will."
With that, Mika and Jamal exchanged a fist bump before Jamal headed for his home and Mika and Karelia climbed into Kevin's car for the ride home.

Over the next several weeks, Mika's shoulder would indeed make progress as far as healing goes. Before he knew it, the day finally came to take the cast off. It was a workday, and he would be going in alone, so he had to take Karelia with him. It took a hand saw to remove the cast, but once it was off, Mika could at long last move his shoulder. It was still a little tender when he moved it, but at least it wasn't accompanied by any major pain. Soon, the Finn was back to action, but not able to play any hockey game. Besides, the season was over by now, and the Cougars had lost the Stanley Cup to Boston, the very team they were playing when Mika had the accident that left him out for the season.
But it wasn't all bad news for Mika. He made good of his word to join a basketball game with Jamal and company and practice for it as well. Which, needless to say, wasn't going very well at first. But as with all things, practice made perfect, and he did indeed improve at it.
He would often practice on the same court where those kids usually played at.