A natural brook is smooth, balanced, and adept at navigating the rocks and sediment, making each a unique piece of its ecosystem. 

If you live in Minnesota, the babbling brook of the summer is frozen by winter, and it's also typically a place where you'll find Brooke White-Lancettte - on the ice. Her father, her coach growing up, always said, "If you can skate, you can play for as long as you want."

It was on the ice that her passion and dedication to the sport started a lifelong journey.

White-Lancette is a California native, the daughter of a well-known Hollywood animator, and a former stunt double in a pair of blockbuster movies. 

She's worn the red, white, and blue for Team USA in international competition. She's a former collegiate captain, an original Minnesota Whitecap, and a Premier Hockey Federation Isobel Cup champion and was also the MVP of the 2010 Clarkson Cup Championship.

She's a skating billboard for the women's game, and a passionate advocate for a female professional women's hockey presence. 

And after 18 years of playing women's professional hockey, Brooke will embrace retirement.

For the first time in nearly two decades, White-Lancette's name will not appear on a professional roster. One could assume that someday, No. 10 will be retired by the organization. 

Before she became a women's hockey icon, the only option for White-Lancette was to play with the boys.  

"We were in the Los Angeles area, and back then, there was no girls' team," White-Lancette said. "I tried out for the local boys' Squirt team, and that option was quickly shut down. "My parents opened the door by starting their own hockey club, the Valley Bulldogs. The Valley Bulldogs had teams that ranked from Squirt-aged to Junior B hockey, and White-Lancette skated at every level. 

"We were a true, dedicated hockey family in a hockey desert," White-Lancette said.

Brooke spent several years in Lake Placid, New York, the home of the 1980 Winter Olympics, attending USA Hockey camps and festivals. The next step in Brooke's career took her to the Northwood School, also located in Lake Placid, which counts former NHLers and Olympians Mike Richter, Tony Granato, Chris Therien, and Craig Conroy among its men's hockey alumni.

Prior to moving onto the Northwood campus, White-Lancette took her second turn in the spotlight, playing the skating double for the character of Connie Moreau (number 18) in the second and third installments of the Mighty Ducks feature films. 

"The whole environment was just unbelievable. It was a great experience," White-Lancette said, adding that she also assisted her father, Jack, the film's technical advisor, in helping the actors with some of the skating basics.

After three seasons in Lake Placid, White-Lancette remained on the east coast, enrolling at Northeastern University in Boston for the 1998-1999 season, two years before women could play in an NCAA Division I national tournament.

"I was invited to visit several schools," White-Lancette said, a few of which included Dartmouth, New Hampshire, Brown, and Northeastern were all programs that piqued her interest. "I chose Northeastern because "I loved the fact that it was smaller, but you were in the big city," White-Lancette continued. "When I walked into the locker room, it felt like home. The coach (Heather Lindstad) was dancing in the locker room and having fun. It was my kind of team."

Her four-year collegiate playing career at Northeastern saw White-Lancette total 45 goals and 117 points, helping the Huskies to appear in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference finals as a junior before falling to Providence 1-0. White-Lancette's Huskies, even though they did not qualify for the national tournament, her teams set the stage for Northeastern's later success, including the program's first appearance in 2016. 

White-Lancette took the 2000-2001 year off from Northeastern, having earned a spot on the U.S. National Team and opting to take advantage of the team's residency program in Lake Placid and participate in the USNT's pre-Olympic tour prior to the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City.

"I remember reading the newspaper (in 1998) and seeing the headlines" women's hockey will be an Olympic sport for the first time in 1998,'" White-Lancette said. "From the moment I read the headlines, I knew this was what I wanted to accomplish. Having the opportunity to be a member of the U.S. team was a dream come true. I got to eat, sleep and breathe hockey". 

For one of the few times in her hockey career, White-Lancette experienced a bump in the road - or so she thought. "I was trying out for the U.S. team and felt I had one of my best tryouts," White-Lancette said. "I was feeling good, I scored, and everything was great. After tryouts, the roster was posted, but as I scrolled down the list, I did not see my name. My heart dropped," White-Lancette said. 

Crushed, White-Lancette returned to the hotel where she and her parents had set up camp for the tryout. Tears and frustration poured out, and her parents consoled her. "All of a sudden, (we) hear a knock at the door, and it's Ben Smith, head coach of the Olympic team. He said, 'Brooke White, we just want to apologize, we accidentally left your name off the list, and you did make the team.'", White-Lancette says, transporting herself back to that moment. "After that, I had tears of joy." 

White-Lancette skated for Team USA during its pre-Olympic tour, Four Nations cup, and in the 2001 World Championships alongside fellow women's hockey pioneers Cammi Granato, Krissy Wendell, Angela Ruggiero, Julie Chu, Natalie Darwitz, and Winny Brodt among others. At one point during the tour, Brooke drew the unenviable task of shadowing Team Canada star Hayley Wickenheiser, who White-Lancette proudly says was held off the scoresheet during that particular game. 

After her time with Team USA and final season at Northeastern in 2003, White-Lancette joined Dwayne Schmidgall, Jack Brodt, and their hockey icon daughters Winny Brodt (now Winny Brodt-Brown) and Jenny Schmidgall (now Jenny Schmidgall-Potter) with the Minnesota Whitecaps 2004. True to his artistic nature, White-Lancette's father created the original iconic Whitecaps logo. 

The seeds for the eventual union between White-Lancette and the Whitecaps were initially planted during White-Lancette's time spent with Brown and Potter at USA Hockey National Camps, where the trip began skating together in their early teens. 

"Looking back, just knowing that hockey brought us together, I'm so thankful for all those lifelong friendships that we created back then," White-Lancette said, adding that those relationships made her eventual move to Minnesota a smooth transition. 

"I made the decision to move to Minnesota in 2003, and that began the journey of developing the Minnesota Whitecaps with Jack Brodt and Winny and Jenny and Dwayne Schmidgall." 

In the Whitecaps' early existence, playing hockey came secondary. Being able to pay for the season took priority. The team went on a promotional tour, lined up its own sponsors, set up fundraisers, sold advertisements, and had corporate sponsorship. From 2004 on, it was going out and promoting, running clinics for the communities and building the brand," White-Lancette said.

From those humbler-than-humble beginnings, the Whitecaps earned a reputation throughout North America as one of the continent's top women's hockey teams, competing in the Western Women's Hockey League and winning three straight WWHL titles from 2009-2011. Three Clarkson Cup appearances came in 2009, 2010, and 2011, with the Whitecaps capturing the prestigious trophy in 2010. 

For much of the 2000s, women's hockey at the top levels was in flux. The WWHL couldn't come to an agreement with the original National Women's Hockey League, and a potential merger collapsed around the 2006-2007 season. The WWHL eventually merged with the Canadian Women's Hockey League in 2011, and the CWHL decided against adding the Whitecaps. 

The Whitecaps played an independent schedule for the next several seasons, playing games primarily against women's collegiate teams in exhibition matches. The competition was decent, but the team hungered for more than a cobbled-together slate of games. 

Reborn in 2016, the NWHL added the Whitecaps to its league prior to the 2018-2019 season, with the new TRIA Rink located in downtown St. Paul's Treasure Island Center to serve as its home base. 

On October 6, 2018, the Whitecaps hosted the Metropolitan Riveters in its first NWHL home game. A sold-out house welcomed the Whitecaps to the ice, unleashing a roar that had been nearly two decades in the making. 

For White-Lancette, taking the ice that night was understandably emotional. 

"I remember standing next to Winny on the blue line for the national anthem and just tearing up and looking at her," White-Lancette recalled. "We both were in tears, knowing that we finally made it. It was really a special moment to be a part of the inaugural game."

White-Lancette and the Whitecaps won the NWHL's Isobel Cup that first season, stamping the franchise as a cornerstone of the league. 

That's quite a long way from knocking on doors and leaving voicemails for potential sponsors, or negotiating for ice time from local youth associations. 

"(I remember) people standing behind one another and helping each other, sacrificing and building something," White-Lancette said. "Going to the clinics, getting up early, volunteering for the expo to get our name out. All those hundreds and thousands of hours you put into growing the game. Knowing that history, hopefully, everybody will continue down that same path, to give back and pay it forward to the next generation."

After so much time in the women's game, scratching and clawing for growth in the sport she so dearly loves, what could be next for White-Lancette? How will she fill the hours that she normally would have spent training? Or stick handling? Or practicing?

Oh, she'll still be at a rink somewhere. 

White-Lancette has two sons who play the game, a husband who referees at multiple levels, and a bustling business training players of all ages. She's heavily involved in Minnesota Hockey's High Performance and Tier I Girls' programs and is MN Hockey's Girls' development coordinator. 

Known for her bubbly personality and ready smile, there is still no denying that White-Lancette, like all women's hockey players at a certain level, has had to work hard for her spot in the hockey world. 

From the youth associations in California who refused to have a girl play for them, to everything that came with starting a professional women's team from scratch - missing team buses, shared hotel rooms, 6:00 AM practices, and road trips spent sharing a sedan for thousands of miles with teammates. 

"Life is about the journey, and I wouldn't change a thing," White-Lancette said. 

"I love what I do, and every day I get to lace up my skates is another day that I am thankful for the opportunity."