Montreal Canadiens' Twitter thank-you campaign backfires

The Montreal Canadiensreached one million Twitter followers on Tuesday and decided to thank their fans, but ended up creating a public relations snafu instead.

The @CanadiensMTL feed was programmed to thank followers with videos and messages.

Videos of different team members were sent randomly to followers

Some people used the opportunity to criticize the team and its coach

Others createdoffensive Twitter handles, or usedracist, sexist and obscene language. Many of the tweets were later deleted.

The Montreal Canadiensrealized what had happened and started pulling down their own automated messages as well.

Team tweeted an apology

The Canadiens aren't the first NHL team to have a Twitter campaign hijacked.

In 2014, the Pittsburgh Penguins' #AskNeilhashtagwas co-opted by fans who wanted to know about James Neal's history ofcausing head injuries.

In 2013, the Toronto Maple Leafs used #SEAofBLUEfor fans to tweet their support and see those messages on the website'smain page. Fans soon noticed tweets were sent to the homepage unfiltered and used #SEAofBLUEto ridicule the team.

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