Why the Cup Finals often are a letdown.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

MIAMI _ Detroit and Colorado finished one of the best, most star-studded series of the past 25 years Friday. San Jose-Colorado was just as thrilling game by game but had neither the rivalry history nor the stakes of Detroit-Colorado.

Many believe the Stanley Cup Finals won't have the scintillating quality of either. Which begs the question: Why is it always thus? Not only are the Stanley Cup Finals rarely the best playoff series _ it rarely is even a good series.

The Rangers outlasting Vancouver through seven games in 1994; the continuous dynamic tension between Dallas and Buffalo over six games in 1999; and New Jersey surviving an increasingly brutal six-game series against Dallas in 2000 _ that's every good Stanley Cup Finals in the past 10.

No, I didn't forget 2001. That's the problem. Ray Bourque finally clean-and-jerking the Stanley Cup was the exclamation point on an agonizing seven-game series that felt like a seven-year prison sentence. It wasn't a series, just seven unrelated games played between teams with neutral feelings for each other.

Many championship events fall short of greatness. There hasn't been a World Cup final worth remembering since 1986. Super Bowl Sunday became an annual national holiday at the same time the Super Bowl became our annual national joke.

But it shouldn't be that way for the Stanley Cup. All the pain and spouses players ignore, the nastiness that must be endured, the perils that have to be dodged should produce an ultimate hockey series, right?

It should, but it doesn't. Here's why: