Ticats-Bombers game underway after 2.5 hour lightning delay, indoor coin toss

Wednesday's CFL game in Winnipeg between the Blue Bombers and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, a special game honouring Milt Stegall's induction into the Bombers' ring of honour, was set to kick off at 8:30 p.m. Eastern (7:30 p.m. local), but wound up being delayed until after 11 Eastern thanks to lightning storms in the area. Here's a shot from Brady Laws on Twitter illustrating just how close the lightning was to Investors Group Field:

The thunder and lightning sparked another unusual CFL move, with the referee conducting the coin toss inside a stadium corridor around the initial start time so they could start more quickly later on:

The long delay (and recurring pushbacks of just how long it would be) spawned plenty of Twitter jokes. Here are some of the best ones on Marshall Ferguson's hashtag of #BeforeThisCFLGameStarts:

When the delay finally ended, the Bombers' players were pretty pumped up to hear the news:

Still, given the team's poor record at Investors Group Field (7-23 overall heading into this game, and 0-3 this year), the time they spent in the tunnel was better than some of their past performances, as John Hodge and Andrew Paterson noted:

The Bombers seemed to come out of the gate with plenty of fire despite the delay, though, and they took a 14-0 lead in the first five minutes. We'll see if they can keep it up.