Protein is essential in muscle building. The shakes do help you a bit by supplying some protein in your system, although great drawback to whey is that it's in and out of your body in less than 2 hours. If you do go for shakes use it as a supplement and not the basis. They are right diet is the most important factor in all of this. You need excess of calories to grow. If he works out it would be best to consume a shake right after the workout w/ some carbs and then go for a solid meal. But like i said it all comes down to calories, you need enough of them to grow and if he's playing hockey his metabolism is probobly really high and needs to eat much more than he already is.
As far as the creatine, i think the best out there and the purest is made from Creapure. Prolab sells it at DPSnutrition.com for pretty cheap. It's the purest and the best i've ever used. I don't like twinlab products at all. And i have heard good things as well from people who have used phosphagen as mentioned above.
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