Livio Schorno
Livio Schorno a 16 year old Swiss student, applied and was accepted on a hockey scholarship at Westlake Boys High School (WBHS) for the entire 2020 year.
WBHS contacted Kaushik Patel in view of his involvement with hockey as well as his role in sport in the High Performance arena and asked if the family would host Livio as a ‘home stay student. The family has for a number of years hosted students from overseas (mainly Asian) and readily accepted the offer.
Livio’s hockey involvement with WBHS was going to be fairly minimal, especially at weekends and therefore we sought other opportunities for him to gain invaluable experience. He joined a North Harbour Academy program in February which was good for him but did not extend his development to the level required.
Naturally we jumped on this opportunity and invited him to play for the AISC Youth team which he readily accepted,however……..He also looked to play senior hockey for ABC on the North Shore and trialled with the Premier and Premier Reserve grade team, astonishingly they came back to him and could only offer him a grade 3 team, this is the grade North Harbour use where the older generation play with some young players (13-15 year olds) to guide them appropriately, we decided that this pathway for Livio was not going to extend him. If Livio had chosen this pathway he would have not been able to play for the AISC Youth team. Thereafter we met with AISC Coaching & Development Manager Preetesh Parsotam and discussed the possibility of Livio not only playing in the Youth but also the senior teams and after a couple of trials/training sessions it was confirmed that Livio would play with the AISC D1 team and would be nurtured by Nilesh Patel. The rest is now unfortunately history, as in a truncated season Livio has certainly left his mark with both the Youth and D1 teams.
Livio in his ‘own words’ describes himself as a strong, powerful and quick player and came to NZ to develop the finer parts of the game, namely stickwork, skills and finesse. His drag flicking, especially for a 16 year old is nothing short of remarkable and it’s not luck that he’s good at this, even through the first lockdown the family would make a daily exercise trek to Takapuna Normal Int School and use their small turf where Livio would practice his drag flicking for over an hour, naturally he had done the same in Switzerland just as often if not more.
In the youth team he was a natural leader and all the boys respected him for his ability, he certainly displayed the‘mongrel’ and aggressive nature that we so readily miss not only at Youth but also at senior level, let's hope he has set an example for others to follow.
In the D1 and Youth team his aggressive and demand for all others around him to play to his level was vociferous, to the annoyance of a lot of people, this was not him trying to be a non-team player it’s merely high standards for himself and expecting the same of others, it’s a work on for him but he definitely should not lose the aggressive style.
Covid-19 pandemic has robbed Livio and us of lots of opportunity on and off the hockey field however we have all loved having him with us and hopefully we have left a good impression on him to maybe return in the future and if not his lets hope he recommends his younger 14 year brother Julian to come to NZ and AISC, apparently he’s just as talented.
Livio flies back to Switzerland on Thursday 20th August due to the pandemic and lack of hockey for rest of the season we wish him safe travels, the AISC welcomed Livio into our club and community and special praise to be given to the coaching structure led by Preetesh and Nilesh which saw great comms with the Youth and D1 set up, long may this continue. Also a big thank you to Stephen Jenness for donating his Blacksticks shirt as a memento for Livio, Youth players Aarun and Arjun presenting the shirt, Livio was thrilled with this gift.
Safe Travels Livio, All the best and we hope to see you again soon.