So You Want To Live Like A Blue?

You loved him as a rookie when he excited us with 14 goals in just 57 games, showing us promise of a youth movement when the team had nothing positive going on. As a sophomore he rang up 27 goals and you bought your first Stempniak jersey. You even briefly flirted with the idea of getting a No. 12 tattoo before you sobered up.

In year three he struggled, but still he flashed that sweet wrister and power play one-timer enough that you still believed. Stempniak would be back, you theorized, because you don't forget how to shoot.

Then last year you stood in shock when you herad he'd been traded. You'd already bought the No. 12 version of the new Blues third jersey. You'd even laughed off the 'no exchanges, no cancellations' fine print on the order form.

And now, with Stempniak gone for good, off to yet another struggling pro team about to embark on a rebuilding program, you still support the man.

You still say you'd rather have Dutchie in the lineup than Steen and you conveniently leave Colaiacovo out of the conversation.

You still wear that new Blues No. 12 to all of the games and wear the old Blues No. 12 jersey to all of your pick-up hockey games.

Gone, but never forgotton you say, rubbing the back of your calf where that sweet No. 12 tattoo should be.

But now, provided you have the means or the supreme negotiating skills, you can hold onto a bigger piece of Stempniak because his St. Louis home is for sale.

Thanks to blockshoppers.com you can see that the home is essentially brand new, built for Stempniak in September of 2007 by the Dost Corporation who bought the property from the Feldmans for a little over $450,000. Stempniak paid $1,380,000 for the 3,800 square feet (plus another 1,100 in finished basement space, yo!) of new construction. He's asking $1,460,000 for the house today.

Damn, Lee, don't you know it's a down economy!

The house, which sits at 123 Topton Way in Clayton, features four bedrooms and four bathrooms, including a master suite on the first floor for those days that your sore from the morning skate.

It also features a wet bar, a kitchen bar, breakfast room and center island along with granite counter tops and Viking appliances. Oh, and stalkers beware, it's got a fully-functional burglar alarm, too.

No upcoming open house times are listed, so you're out of luck in showing up with your whole family dressed in game-day Blues garb with camera in hand for a couple hours of, "Check out Daddy in Lee Stempniak's shower!" but in the interest of providing some actually useful information, feel free to contact his agent, Suzanne Otto at 314-775-2050 to schedule an appointment.

A couple interesting notes about the property:

Ever felt like after you remodeled your basement you didn't really have enough furniture or artwork to fill it out? Yeah, Lee, too.

What about that sweet dining room? Ever moved into a new house, looked at the dining room and thought, "Damn, do I have to go buy a bunch of furniture now?"

Yep, Lee too.

And what of the family room? Ever been told by some nosy neighbor or one of your wife's annoying friends that it's not 'classy' to put a television over your fireplace?

You know what, we're with Lee on this one: fuck classy. With the TV, this room is niiiiice. Without it, it becomes fly-over country as we roll into the room with the TV with a drink in one hand and a big bowl of salty snacks in the other.

Sadly, no pictures of the Throne Room, but we guess that's the way it goes when you're listing the $1.5 million home of an athlete; you leave the shitter to the imagination of all the morons who run hockey blogs.

So, good luck buyers. Be sure to mention where you saw this listing if you end up buying the Dutchie Stempniansion because, honestly, we want a piece of the commission.