Bill Polian, who was general manager of the Indianapolis Colts when they made the NFL playoffs in 12 of 14 seasons, compares the Red Wings and Spurs to the O'Malley Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers and Steinbrenner New York Yankees, baseball franchises that remained competitive year after year after year.

"That's certainly not an accident," Polian says. "They're what I call team-centric. It's about the team. Yes, professional sports are a business, and you have to have a good building that generates revenue. But ultimately those franchises are about the product on the field or on the ice or on the court. It's about winning.

"I once heard Peter O'Malley say, and I'm paraphrasing here, it's not realistic to believe that you're going to win ever year but you should approach every year that way. And that's what I think these franchises have in common. They have ownership that is committed and lets the people who are hired to do the job do their jobs and then tremendously competent people at the helm who get that job done."

The Red Wings' playoff streak is the longest in major North American pro sports. The cheering hasn't stopped since Cheers was TV's top-rated show: They last missed the playoffs after the 1989-90 season.

"The streak is something you will think about more when you retire," Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg says. "But you know you don't want it to end while you are here."

Gregg Popovich, Spurs coach since 1996, is the longest-tenured coach in major North American pro sports.

"We've all been together a lot of years," San Antonio owner Peter Holt says. "That stability brings a lot to the table."

Stability is also the secret to the Red Wings' success. Mike and Marian Ilitch have owned them for more than 30 years, during which they've employed just three general managers: Jim Devellano, Bryan Murray and Ken Holland.

Each franchise began its current run of greatness with a superstar, David Robinson for the Spurs and Steve Yzerman for the Red Wings. And each franchise kept its streak alive by acquiring another authentic star: Tim Duncan for San Antonio and Nicklas Lidstrom for Detroit.

"It's a function of a great organization and great scouting," says Polian, now an NFL analyst for ESPN. "You do have to have a little bit of luck. The franchise guy has to come along when you're in a position to get him. But the bottom line is those kinds of players become the standard for your franchise and everybody else falls in line."

Lidstrom was the first European-born captain to lead a team to the Stanley Cup, which highlights another similarity: Each organization showed a willingness to look to other continents for stocking its roster, including Tony Parker (France) and Manu Ginobili (Argentina) for the Spurs and Pavel Datsyuk (Russia) and Zetterberg (Sweden) for the Red Wings.

"The Spurs pioneered the scouting and signing of foreign players in the NBA," Polian says. "They got a jump with Ginobili and Parker before other teams realized that was a good source of talent."

Holt says necessity was the mother of that dimension: "We were a small market, and we couldn't afford to go buy all that talent. We were trying to compete with New York, L.A., (Portland Trail Blazers owner) Paul Allen and those kinds of people."

The teams have their differences, too. The Red Wings are an Original Six franchise with a grand NHL tradition that includes Gordie Howe, the game's most famous player in the 1950s and 1960s, long before the Spurs were born in 1967. San Antonio traces its ancestry to the outlaw American Basketball Association and didn't join the NBA until 1976, when its greatest player was George "Iceman" Gervin, whose nickname would be at home on the rinks where Detroit plays