I'd like to automatically record certain sports events automatically, specifically New Jersey Devils hockey games. I'm having some difficulties figuring out how to do it, though. Here's what's happening.

1) The games show up in the listing with the title "NHL Hockey", and a subtitle to the effect of "Philadelphia Flyers at New Jersey Devils".
2) The games don't always start at the same time, and are not necessarily on the same channel.
3) The channels that cover the Devils games also cover other teams' games.
4) Some (not all) of the networks replay the games a few hours later (or the next day).
5) None of the games (or replays) have "original airdate" tags.
6) The games sometimes run over their scheduled blocks.

If I just set it to record "NHL Hockey", it'll record not only Devils games, but also other teams' games that are broadcast in my area (Islanders, Rangers, Sabres, etc), and it'll record the replays, so that's not really a solution.

The replays, however, are somewhat identifiable because they are either a different length (the live games are scheduled for 2h30m, but the replays are 2h, since they cut out some of the dead time), or start some time between midnight and 3 AM.

So... What I really need is a schedule for any show on any channel where the title is "NHL Hockey", "New Jersey Devils" appears somewhere in the subtitle, the length is 2h30m, and the start time is not between midnight and 10 AM. And... record an extra half hour after the end, just in case. Is this possible?

Most of the things you want should be possible. On your way to schedule a recording, you may find in the screen named 'Schedule', in this screen the fifth item, just above manual recording (on R5A16)
You can add lots of rules making your own complex and advanced recording rule.
I'm not sure if it is possible to extend schduled recordings for 30 minutes....

Ok, thanks. I'll check that out when I get home. Right now my only access to the box is via mythweb.

I've definitely seen a screen somewhere that lets you set it to automatically extend sports recordings for 30mins! I think its in the general recording options somewhere...

Thanks again for the tip. I played around with the Custom Record options (I'd never looked at that before), and was able to make a rule that works perfectly. The only problem is that if the game is on more than one channel at a time, it will attempt to record both, but I can live with this, as it doesn't happen very often.