When Greg Bay first jotted down his ideas on the back of a coaster at a local pub, he likely had little inkling his vision would be embraced by hundreds of the world’s elite athletes and lead to a deal with an internationally-renowned company.

But that is exactly what has happened to the Abbotsford physiotherapist, who expects to see hundreds of thousands of pairs of his Coreshorts product leave the shelves next year thanks to an exclusive deal with sportswear giant Under Armour.

Bay’s Coreshorts gained widespread publicity in 2007, when he appeared on Dragons’ Den – a CBC television show that features entrepreneurs pitching their ideas to a panel of Canadian business moguls.

Bay failed to secure the financial backing he desired at that time, but the brush-off was a mere blip as he sold 10,000 pairs of Coreshorts in 2007, anyway, followed by 19,000 in 2008 and an anticipated 23,000 in 2009. That, he said, is without conducting any marketing campaign.

Bay’s subsequent success appears to have stuck in the craw of the Dragons. On Wednesday he returned to the show, but this time on a “where are they now?” episode featuring businesses that have been successful despite failing to secure investment from the panel.

Bay appeared alongside Coreshorts user Rick Nash, captain of the Columbus Blue Jackets hockey team.

Bay, who runs Sports & Spine Physiotherapy in Abbotsford, said approximately 300 NHL players wear Coreshorts. They are also favoured by many National Football League players, he said, as well as by National Basketball Association stars and elite European soccer players.

The head trainer of the Canadian Soccer Association for 20 years, Bay’s main impetus for inventing Coreshorts followed his frustration that he didn’t have a product to offer his patients who were recovering from groin injuries.

“It started out being aimed at people that had been injured, and then it progressed to a point that when people weren’t injured, they didn’t take them off,” said Bay. “They help (injury) prevention, but there is a lot of evidence to suggest that they improve performance.”

The Coreshort features diagonal elastics that run from each hip to the opposite mid-thigh, mimicking the diagonal sling system of the human anatomy.

Up until now, Bay said his push has been towards professional sports men and women. However, Coreshorts are equally valuable to other sports people, he said, or simply anyone who requires additional support in the mid-section of their body.

Once Under Armour becomes involved next February, Coreshorts will be marketed hard in North America, Japan and Europe, said Bay, who expects sales to surge.

Bay first came up with the Coreshorts concept in 1996, while jotting down some of his ideas at Finnegan’s pub.

It then took six years of trial and error to finalize a design that fused his medical knowledge with cutting-edge materials. He worked with a local seamstress and went through 60 prototypes before settling on a final design.

The reaction to the product since then has been “amazing,” he maintains.

“It’s the market that we knew was there,” he said. “We just had to get the evidence at the top level.”