MONTREAL (AP) — The Montreal Canadiens have apologized after the team's Twitter account issued automated responses to messages containing racial slurs and offensive user names.

The Canadiens announced on Twitter early Wednesday that they have corrected what they called a "filtering issue," saying the problem won't happen again.

The problem occurred when the Canadiens launched a campaign to thank fans for the team reaching 1 million Twitter followers. Fans who tweeted the Canadiens' account with a hashtag received automated responses including videos of Montreal players thanking them and a picture of a team jersey with their user name printed on the back.

A number of questionably named accounts — one featuring a racial slur — was included among the responses.

Many of the automated responses have been removed.