Only 71 years ago, on Sept. 8, 1954, Toronto teenager Marilyn Bell captured the hearts of Canadians by swimming across Lake Ontario. Our family had just moved east from Winnipeg to Toronto, so we had been thrust into the centre of Canadian sports action.

She swam the 51 kilometres in just under 21 hours, while the ten male swimmers had dropped out one by one. Her prize was $10,000, plus a car and some furniture. Them were the days.

And last week, we were treated to Summer McIntosh’s assault on the world record books, as she won four gold medals at the World Swimming Championships in Singapore.

Don’t think I am jaded or cynical, but I don’t spend much time watching the major professional sports. Or hockey.

My interest in hockey has been declining for years. “Canada’s sport” may have lost me for good, after I was force-fed news of the disgusting activity a few years ago in London by five members of our Team Canada Men’s Junior team.

Four months of almost daily media coverage. Legal or illegal, what happened was just plain wrong. Wrong.

Now let’s get back to the recent fun of watching Canadian teenage swimmers and tennis players. With an easy focus on the women.

In our troubled and complicated world, wasn’t it wonderful to see such well-spoken, enthusiastic young Canadians rising to the very top of their chosen sports?

To think that a well-mannered and enthusiastic teenager from just across the lake in Etobicoke could take on the best swimmers in the world. Not only take them on, but dominate them.

And our Summer is not alone, with Penny Oleksiak and other Canadian National Team members also in the upper echelon of their chosen sport.

I made a big effort last week to watch Burlington’s Victoria Mboko (pronounced “Embukoe”) as she made her way through the draw at the National Bank Open in Montreal.

Incidentally, shouldn’t that tennis tournament be called the Canadian Open? Like the Australian Open, the U.S. Open and the Italian Open.

Yes, the tournament was presented by Rogers, and various other sponsors got into the confusing act.

Only by gritty determination was I able to find out when her matches were scheduled to start. Finally, I phoned a few tennis-loving friends to confirm Victoria’s game times. Allez, Vicky, the crowd cheered.

I totally climbed aboard the Mboko bandwagon, cheering for this wonderful tennis player with a positive on-court personality.

No hot-dogging after a big point, and no whining after flubbing an easy shot. She moves on to the next point, and what happens happens. No arguing with the umpire.

We Canadians have claimed her as one of our own, and the smarties at Tennis Canada are fully behind her. Yes, our tax dollars doing good work.

I watched and I learned. Instead of ballboys, we now have ballkids helping out. Makes sense to me.

Vicky, whose family is originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, was born in Charlotte, N.C., followed by much tennis time in Belgium. Yes, a great Canadian story.

The spectators in Sobeys Stadium revved up the decibel level, and this became yet another great moment in our national sports story.

Let me ramble to a sporting conclusion with a brief shout-out to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. From Hamilton, just down the QEW. Two months ago, I hardly knew his long name, but lately he has won just about every award there is to win in the rarified world of professional basketball.

MVP of the regular season and the playoffs, and leading his team from Oklahoma City to the league title.

Now, a very wealthy young man, but still humble and a graceful sportsman. Another high-achieving and very likable ambassador for Canada.

My sports watching experience has experienced a real upper, with Summer McIntosh, Victoria Mboko and now “SGA.” That’s his clever sobriquet.

This whole sports story is all so good, on so many levels. Vicky Mboko is so well spoken, so appreciative and her interviews are so much more than pithy cliches. Her parents and siblings were there to cheer for her and love her.

Her picture and story were on the front pages of national papers across Canada.

Let’s marvel at our young athletes, as they provide good news for our great and mostly humble nation.

Canada. What a country!