There's often delays in hockey games if the referees are reviewing a goal or for an injury timeout. However, forgetting an article of clothing? Well, that's something that you don't see every day.

But that was the case in Sunday's National Ice Hockey League game between the Peterborough Phantoms and Telford Tigers in the United Kingdom. Before the puck dropped, referee Richard Belfitt realized that he had forgotten his officiating pants for the game.

The puck drop ended up being delayed 15 minutes after he was forced to search for another pair of pants. Officials are required to wear black pants with extra padding because they could be hit by a puck throughout a game.

Belfitt eventually found a suitable pair in the arena's lost-and-found bin. Needless to say, he had to deal with a little bit of ribbing from the players and teams alike.

"We all saw the lighter side of it," Phantoms defenseman Tom Norton told BBC Sport. "The funny thing is we were a bit late for our warm-up and had been threatened with a penalty from the officials if we weren't off the ice in time. As annoying as it was for us, having done our warm-up and been ready to go, these things happen and it's a bit of comedy really."

Prior to the start of the game, Peterborough's Twitter account poked some fun at Belfitt.

When all the hysteria subsided, Telford was able to come away with an 8-6 win over Peterborough in what turned out to be a very entertaining evening on all accounts.