New York ? The Tampa Bay Lightning were supposed to raise their Stanley Cup championship banner this week to kick off the new season.

Instead, the arena that rocked during the finals in June will be dark because of a labor dispute that shows no sign of ending soon. That will be the case, too, for Ottawa, Chicago, Colorado, Phoenix, Anaheim and San Jose, also slated to play host to openers tonight.

The NHL has been shut down for nearly a month following the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement.

The league and the players association are so far apart philosophically that they haven’t met or even spoken since Sept. 9 — a week before the decade-old deal ran out.

“I don’t think anybody is happy that we’re in the situation we’re in,” said Bill Daly, the NHL’s chief legal officer. “I think everybody would much rather be playing hockey.”

Training camps didn’t open on time, and then the entire preseason schedule was wiped out.

Now, real games are officially about to be lost. And with no talks planned, the entire season is in serious jeopardy.

“The players are disappointed but not surprised the 2004-05 season will not start on time,” NHLPA senior director Ted Saskin said Tuesday. “The league’s decision to lock out the players to try to force them to accept a salary-cap system had been planned for many years.”

The Lightning were supposed to enjoy one of the biggest nights in the history of the 12-year-old team that unexpectedly won the Stanley Cup last season in a thrilling seven-game series over Calgary.

Before a rematch tonight with the Philadelphia Flyers, the team the Lightning vanquished in the Eastern Conference finals, the championship was supposed to celebrated again.

That won’t happen now.

“Our fans lived through some great memories with our team last season and we intend on rekindling those memories just as soon as the work stoppage is over,” Lightning president Ron Campbell said Tuesday.

Instead of being something special tonight, it will just be one of seven games wiped out.

“It is definitely emblematic of some short-term pains for the Lightning and our fans, but we know the work stoppage will bring good times for our organization over the long term,” Campbell said.

Although games won’t officially be canceled by the NHL until the day they are supposed to be played, they really are being called off a month in advance.

The league is leaving the cancellation of games up to clubs that have been given permission to release arena dates on a 30-day rolling basis.

“It’s not something that comes as a surprise,” Saskin said. “We all knew there would not be an opening night on Oct. 13.”

So there is no hope of any games being played in October, and November’s schedule is quickly being lost, too. Even the most optimistic observers say that there won’t be any NHL hockey before January.