Hockey players got back.

And now they’ve also got their own brand of jeans that are tailored to accommodate the fuller contours of those sports-related thunder thighs and muscular booties.

Yesterday, Ottawa’s Gongshow Gear released its new line of “hockey ass jeans” labeled Beauty Fit Jeans – Built for Hockey Players. They’re the world’s first brand created with the deluxe derrière of the average hockey player in mind.

Gongshow Gear was launched in Ottawa in 2002 by three former Junior A hockey players. With one of them since bought out, the company is now owned by Ger McNamee and Craig Kennedy, both 32. The brand, which is sold online and in stores worldwide, includes hoodies, T-shirts, baseball caps and jeans that celebrate hockey culture, said McNamee. But this new line of jeans is already capturing attention on and off the ice.

Most hockey players have highly developed upper legs and butts, explains McNamee. The Gongshow website jokingly suggests that this niche market is the result of “hours of skating, squats, bedroom games and overall just dominating life.”

Often recognizable by their missing front teeth, hockey players apparently have another distinguishing feature – hard-as-granite buttocks and “jacked quads.”

“These players need powerful legs, balancing on those thin blades. And they’ve got to have explosive power in their thighs. After years of practising from the time they were kids, they’ve developed muscles that are difficult to squeeze into a regular pair of jeans,” said McNamee.

He knows first hand.

McNamee says hockey players often talk about their struggle to find jeans they like. Because many have small waists, their disproportionately larger legs and butts make a good fit challenging.

Hockey Ass jeans already have fans in the NHL, like Luke Adam of the Buffalo Sabres. He puts the maximus in gluteus.

Contacted yesterday by e-mail, Adam said he has searched for years to find jeans that fit his hockey ass, and he’s excited to test drive his first pair of Gongshow Gear jeans.

Derek Roy of the Dallas Stars agreed. “As a hockey player, I am constantly on the look out for jeans that fit my legs properly – when I do find a pair that fit perfectly, I tend to buy a few,” he wrote in an e-mail. Roy confirms Hockey Ass jeans are a “solution” to a big problem among hockey players.

“We’ve just launched these jeans and at $89.99 they’re flying out the door,” said McNamee.

He’s selling the jeans as a novelty, he admits – but also as a problem solver for hockey players who’ve spent their lives standing frustrated in dressing rooms, wriggling into jeans that don’t get past their knees – or conversely finding jeans that accommodate their outsized thighs but end up being too big in the waist.

McNamee said Gongshow Gear apparel is worn by hundreds of NHL players as well as legions of junior and college hockey players. It’s sold in 500 stores in 15 countries, including likely nations such as Sweden and Latvia and more unusual locations such as Australia. “Surfers have their brands and snowboarders have their brands, but there was a void in the market for hockey players,” said McNamee.

And for 2013?

Hockey ass jeans for girls.

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“Women’s hockey is growing so fast, and they’ve got the same issues,” said McNamee.

Ask Beyoncé – or any of the players on the Canadian National Women’s Team.