Can Hazel move to CUSTOM subfolders?

First off, Hazel kicks ass! This product has saved me an incredible amount of tedium. I'm now trying to do something that I think might be asking too much of it, but here goes:

I'd like to sort files into subfolders the names of which are the first word in the filename. For example, "Smithers 2-10-2013" should go into subfolder "Smithers", and "Noodlesoft receipt" should go into subfolder "Noodlesoft". I am doing it now with individual rules for each name (i.e. I have a "Smithers" rule and a "Noodlesoft" rule and so on) but this is starting to become rather unwieldy. I'd rather have a rule that says files named x&" "&wildcard should go into subfolder x, but I can't quite figure out how.

Any thoughts?

Yes it can.

Look into custom matching. I have prepared a few tutorials that should give you a good idea of how to do this. They are in the tips and tricks forum. Once you have the tokens set, you can use them in the sort into subfolder method.

Search for "match patterns" in the help for more details and an example.