Apocryphal or not, the tale of Robert the Bruce and the spider holds lessons for the efforts of Vancouver Canucks management to assemble a new, young roster.

As the legend has it, young Robert watched a spider try to fling itself from one beam to another six times. The spider made it on the seventh attempt. Had the spider failed on that seventh attempt, so the story goes, Robert said he would have taken the lesson that some things are just impossible, that he should give up his fight to free Scotland.

Instead, he took inspiration from the repeated efforts of the spider, and set out to defeat the English — after he himself had failed six times to defeat the invaders from the south. This seventh effort took eight years, but he did eventually emerge victorious at the Battle of Bannockburn.

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