Bob Errey is one of the many links between Pittsburgh and Detroit. And when asked what popped into his head regarding the Stanley Cup matchup, the hockey analyst who played for the Penguins and Red Wings ticked off a summary.

"The two best teams in hockey. Skill. Star quality. Good defenses. Hot goalies. Passionate fans," Errey said. "Detroit is Hockeytown. Pittsburgh loves its hockey team. To win the Stanley Cup, you have to beat the best. The Red Wings are the best."

The teams never have collided in the playoffs and meet sporadically during the regular season because of the unbalanced schedule. And at first glance, this series is a blank slate. There is no contempt bred by familiarity. No known grudges. No coaching feud. No insults or trash talk. Just a best-of-seven played out in two cities with blue-collar legacies between two teams with world-class forwards, team-based defenses and high-caliber goaltending. In short, it could be a classic and the best ad for the new NHL that the suits could have hoped for.

Oh, there are plenty of subplots and paradoxes. Detroit's Chris Chelios, at 46, was born five years before the Penguins became an NHL franchise. He was with the Chicago team that was swept by Penguins 16 years ago, and it's always a good idea to respect your elders as he drives you ruthlessly into the boards and throws in a Gordie Howe elbow for good measure. Meanwhile, a city that likes to call itself the City of Champions has more consecutive sellouts -- 66 in a row guaranteed, for those seeking good omens -- than Hockeytown, but Detroit has more championships.

But from the long view, the two cities -- both of which share roots as French forts before there was an America -- have hockey bonds that rival those between father and son, and sports traditions that intertwine.

The Pirates won their first World Series title in Detroit in 1909, with Honus Wagner outplaying Ty Cobb. Billy Conn, an upstart light heavyweight from East Liberty, was nine minutes away from becoming heavyweight champion of the world in 1941 when he got greedy and was knocked out by Detroit's Joe Louis, for whom the Red Wings' hockey arena is named. Detroit's NFL team has endured the Curse of Bobby Layne stemming from his trade to the Steelers in 1958. Pittsburgh won its last major title in Detroit at Super Bowl XL, when the city welcomed Steelers fan with open arms. Former Pirates skipper Jim Leyland now manages the Tigers.

And, as far as hockey goes, the sport wouldn't exist in Pittsburgh without Detroit. The relationship goes back to 1936 when a minor-league team called the Detroit Olympics was sold, relocated to Pittsburgh and operated as a minor-league team for the Red Wings. That team became the Pittsburgh Hornets, denizens of the old Duquesne Gardens, who shipped NHL players to Detroit the way the old Pittsburgh mills shipped steel to the Motor City to make cars.

One original Hornet was John Sherf, who was promoted to the Red Wings for the playoffs and became the first U.S. player to have his name engraved on the Stanley Cup. Detroit has won 10 Cups, more than any other team outside of Canada, and is making its 23rd appearance in the final.

When the end of the road came in 1967, while again serving as a minor-league team for the Red Wings, the Hornets went out with a championship. Months later, the Penguins began life as an NHL expansion team, capitalizing on the hockey market the Hornets had created.

Billy Harris, who scored the last goal in Hornets' history in overtime of the championship game, also played for the Red Wings and Penguins. And if you melted down a bit of silver for every player who shared a link between the Red Wings and Penguins, you'd have a sizable grail.

Larry Murphy, for one, was on both the Penguins' Cup winners and was also on the Red Wings' teams that repeated later in the 1990s. Scotty Bowman won Cups with Pittsburgh and Detroit with Murphy on his roster. And on and on.

In the interest of accuracy, both clubs share a dubious NHL distinction as the only two teams to blow a 3-0 lead in the playoffs; Detroit against the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1942, and the Penguins against the New York Islanders in 1975.

Gordie Howe, a.k.a. Mr. Hockey, is the face of the Red Wings as much as Mario Lemieux, Monsieur Le Magnifique, is the face and owner of the Penguins as well as Sidney Crosby's landlord. To highlight the differing styles of the two Hall of Famers, Lemieux once scored a goal five different ways in a game; in hockey circles, the Gordie Howe hat trick was an assist, a goal and a fight.

Jack Riley, the general manager who put together the first Penguins team, says stories about Howe get exaggerated. But he remembered one of the first times Howe played against the Penguins and flattened defenseman Bob Woytowich, whose fan club called itself the Polish Army. (There's a Polish Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and a Poletown in Detroit, so there may be some reference this week to Lord Stashu's Cup, that name being a Slavic version of Stanley.)

"Gordie Howe once came back for an Alumni Game once," Riley said, chuckling, "and I brought my 4-year-old grandson to meet him. Gordie gave him an elbow -- playfully -- and he's been able to say with pride ever since that he was elbowed by Gordie Howe."

Over the years, without much fanfare or controversy, Detroit has built a slight edge in the all-time series, 57-59-16, and has been dominant at home. The Penguins are 13-41-12 there.

The last time the Penguins played in Detroit was Crosby's rookie year, one game before Eddie Olczyk was fired and replaced by Michel Therrien. One of the few noteworthy moments of that meeting was when the crowd displayed its versatility by chanting a one-syllable verb behind the name of Matt Millen, whose leadership of the Lions has Detroit football fans in a lather.

The origins of the Lions' futility began when Layne was traded to the Steelers. Layne had won three titles with the Lions and, when he learned of the trade, he said the Lions would not win for 50 years. The Curse of Bobby Layne has exceeded the prediction.

Later in Crosby's rookie season, when Pittsburgh was abuzz about the Super Bowl in Detroit, he was named a No. 1 star and made his curtain call twirling a Terrible Towel.

Now, the Penguins are so hot in Pittsburgh that Ben Roethlisberger, the youngest quarterback to win a Super Bowl, is going back to Detroit as a spectator to watch Crosby play on hockey's biggest stage. Big Ben and other Steelers, plus some Pirates players and Atlanta's Tom Glavine and John Smoltz, have been seen at playoff games.

"It's the ultimate respect when your peers in other sports come to see you play," said Joe Gordon, the longtime Steelers' media director who worked for the Penguins in their inaugural year.