the San Antonio Spurs,

The defending-champion Miami Heat hold top spot in the preseason edition of the TSN. Merrill Kelly Jersey .ca NBA Power Rankings, but they have challengers lined up to knock them off their perch. Last years finalists, the San Antonio Spurs, are ranked second, ahead of the Indiana Pacers, a team that took Miami to the seventh game of the Eastern Conference Final. After those two, the Heats closest challengers last season, come the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Clippers, two teams that made notable upgrades in the offseason. In the Nets case, they plucked proven vets Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry from Boston, along with Andrei Kirilenko from Minnesota, to give them a much more formidable rotation. In addition to a new coach, Doc Rivers, the Clippers brought in shooters J.J. Redick and Jared Dudley to spread the floor, ideally creating more room for Blake Griffin in the low post and giving Chris Paul more options as he runs the offence. The Oklahoma City Thunder are ranked notably lower than might have been expected, at nine, because point guard Russell Westbrook is recovering from knee surgery. As for Canadas entry, the Toronto Raptors are ranked 22nd, stuck between contending for a playoff spot and being bad enough to contend for one of the top picks in the 2014 Draft Lottery. Scott Cullen can be reached at Scott.Cullen@bellmedia.ca and followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tsnscottcullen. For more, check out TSN Fantasy on Facebook. Greg Swindell Jersey . PETERSBURG, Fla. Paul Goldschmidt Jersey . The above paragraph could be rewritten, verbatim, with Marcus Stromans name in place of Romeros. After both men had disastrous outings in Tuesdays 18-4 mauling at the hands of the Tigers, its clear that neither is the best option to begin the season in Toronto.No Canadian women made it to the Olympic womens shor track 1,500-metre final. The last two Canadian skaters remaining, Valerie Maltais and Marie-Eve Drolet, were eliminated from the semifinals on Saturday at the Iceberg Skating Palace in Sochi. Chinas Zhou Yang later successfully defended her Olympic gold medal in the final. But it was a disappointing day for Canada. Montreals Drolet, 32, finished third in the opening semifinal group with a time of two minutes, 19.516 seconds. Only the top two skaters advanced. Maltais, a native of La Baie, Que., and Canadas best hope for a medal in this distance, couldnt get around defending Olympic champion Zhou Yang of China and Koreas Suk Hee Shim. She ended up third in her semi in 2:19.516. In the earlier 1,500m heats, Marianne St-Gelais of Saint-Felicien, Que., failed to qualify for the semifinals after placing fourth in her heat with a time of 2:27.071. The Saint-Felicien,, Que. Zac Gallen Jersey. , native was also coming off a disappointing 500m performance on Thursday when she was unable to advance to the 500m final. The final featured some terrific racing. Zhou and Koreas Shim Suk Hee battled throughout the race. It appeared the younger Shim would win the event but Zhou made a beautiful move to the inside with two laps remaining. Zhou held on from there, winning with a time of  2:19.140. Shim took the silver in 2:19.239, while Italian Arianna Fontanna won her second medal in Sochi, earning bronze in 2:19.416. "I was nervous at the beginning, but after I finished it I felt so thrilled," Zhou told reporters. "Ive been through a lot during the past four years. I didnt expect I could come back to the Olympic Games." Korean Kim Alang was disqualified for taking out Li Jianrou, who won the gold medal in the 500m on Thursday. (With files from Reuters) ' ' '