Sébastien Thinel

Sébastien Thinel, born on March 24, 1981, is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey winger known for his remarkable career in the Central Hockey League and beyond. He made a significant impact during his time with the Missouri Mavericks, where he was signed on August 23, 2011, for the 2011–12 season. Thinel not only became the first player in team history to score at least eighty points in a season, achieving a total of eighty-two points through twenty-three goals and fifty-nine assists, but he also broke the franchise record previously held by Jeff Christian.

Thinel's tenure with the Mavericks continued as he re-signed for the 2012–13 and 2013–14 seasons. His achievements during the 2013–14 season were particularly noteworthy; on February 15, 2014, he scored his three-hundredth goal in the Central Hockey League, becoming only the sixth player in league history to reach this milestone. Additionally, he became the third player to score nine hundred career points in the league and climbed to second place on the all-time assist list with six hundred and two assists.

In July 2014, Thinel was honored by fans who voted him the number one greatest Mavericks player in a poll celebrating the team's first five years. He re-signed with the Mavericks for the 2014–15 season, but after the Central Hockey League folded, he transitioned to the ECHL, re-signing with the Mavericks under a new contract on October 9, 2014. His career also included stints with the French club Brûleurs de Loups de Grenoble and the Fife Flyers in the UK's EIHL.

Thinel's legacy was further solidified when the Kansas City Mavericks retired his jersey number forty-three on January 12, 2019, during a ceremony at the Silverstein Eye Center Arena. Notably, he shares a familial connection to the sport, as his twin brother, Marc-André, also played professionally, and they were teammates during their junior years at Victoriaville Tigres and the 2006–07 season at Rouen.