Championship Plaza would have been humming Saturday night with fans shoulder to shoulder, wearing their blood-red Devils jerseys and filled with bravado for the start of a new season.

The line of barstools at the Edison Ale House would have been filled, the tables taken at the Brick City Bar and Grill, and the Prudential Center itself would have been bathed in spotlights.

Instead, there was no Opening Night, no Devils and Bruins fans trading barbs, no buzz at all in Newark’s Ironbound.

Hockey owners have locked out the players in another testy sports labor dispute that is hitting some people harder than Scott Stevens ever did. Abandoned in the lurch are fans, vendors, ushers, ticket takers, concessionaires and scores of others who depend on the game for either their pleasure or their livelihoods.

“I’m paying to see the guys on the ice,” said Judy McDermott, a season ticket holder who travels from Wilmington, Del., for each game. “I’m not paying to see the owners in their box.”

Everyone is on tenterhooks, waiting to see how the latest round of negotiations this past week plays out.

The lockout, now 29 days old, centers on a dispute between owners and players over how to slice up $3.2 billion in annual revenues, numbers that seem unreal next to more immediate concerns.

The math is simple for people like Elbio DaSilva, the manager of J&L Parking on Mulberry Street — 700 spots at $25 a pop means $17,500 gone for each lost hockey game, not counting tips.

“Everyone around here will lose money,” he said glumly, adding that without games, there are not enough customers to stay open past 7 p.m.

In boom times, each game on average brings the Devils about a million dollars in revenue. While the lockout also means the Devils don’t have to pay their players, it is also ill-timed for the team’s owner, Jeffrey Vanderbeek, who is in the middle of trying to find investors to buy out the team’s debt.

Newark also has a lot riding on labor peace in hockey. An analysis by the city concluded that each visitor to the Rock spends on average $8 outside the arena, and that doesn’t include parking.

By this calculation, if, say, the lockout erases half the season, the city would lose more than $2.5 million.

But it isn’t just about hard numbers.

On game nights, the area around the arena is transformed with an energy otherwise missing. Having already lost the Nets to Brooklyn, the Ironbound District, many say, is without the electricity generated by game night. Somehow, fans milling around the arena in their Kovalchuk, Brodeur and Parise sweaters give the city a needed jolt.

For loyal fans, the lockout is more a personal matter than anything else.

“I didn’t think it would get to this point,” said Jason Richards. He is 34, and has followed the Devils since John MacLean’s goal in 1988 put the Devils in the playoffs for the first time. He endured the last lockout that wiped out the entire 2004-05 season.

“I’m kind of disgusted with the NHL,” he said. “Every time the sport seems to gain momentum, it seems to take three steps back.”

Marc Brummer, who with his brother Michael owns Hobby’s Delicatessen on Branford Place, says the restaurant stays open later on game nights.

The impact on his business is minimal, he says, but he misses the camaraderie among the regulars. There are sandwiches named after celebrities at Hobby’s, but — no surprise — there are no Lockout Specials.

Jim Brown, 60, who attends eight to 12 games with his wife each season, said he was irritated.

“If they do this for a year, they will be taking a major step backwards,” he said. His anger, he concedes, will last only so long.

“All it takes,” he said, “is for your team to be doing well or flicking on a game and you think, ‘I forgot how much I like this.’ All of a sudden you’re right back.”

Rich Chere: rchere@starledger.com; twitter.com/Ledger_NJDevils