Perhaps it's still a little early to be talking about a changing of the guard.
This CFL season is only half over, funny, aberrant things sometimes happen on Labour Day weekend, and the consistency with which the Montreal Alouettes have gone about their business over the past decade has been something to behold.
But the Hamilton Tiger-Cats' 44-21 humbling of the Als at Ivor Wynne Stadium on Monday suggests at least that what Montreal has made look easy and automatic and all but preordained in seven of the past nine years – a trip to the Grey Cup as the East Division representative – will have to be hard-earned this time around.
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers, despite hitting a great big green speed bump in Regina on Sunday, remain firmly atop the division.
The Ticats, who for two years now have seemed on the verge of becoming a very good team, are in second place with a tie-breaker advantage over Montreal, and may have finally cleared that hurdle.
And so there is the real possibility of the Als being forced to hit the road during the playoffs, rather than enjoying an enormous tactical advantage at the Olympic Stadium, their postseason home.
In only one of those seven years – 2005 – did the Alouettes win a playoff game anywhere but in Montreal.
That's a story to be written in November, and there remain many miles to travel, including two more games between these teams at Molson Stadium in Montreal, and three between the Als and Bombers, who have yet to meet this season.
The story Monday, though, was a Hamilton side that played tenaciously on defence, that disrupted Anthony Calvillo's normally comfortable game of pitch-and-catch, that didn't allow an offensive touchdown. On the other side of the ball, the Tiger-Cats displayed a balanced attack as their offensive line seemed at times to be able to outmuscle the Als, while resisting a propensity for making the big mistake at the worst possible time.
Football is the most emotional of games, and many a victory has been built on riding a positive wave. But more often, it's the other side – keeping calm in the face of adversity, getting past the opportunities for self-destruction – which is the difference between winning and losing.
That the Ticats did Monday, when at least three times they might have sunk.
On the game's first play from scrimmage, receiver Maurice Mann fumbled after catching a pass from Kevin Glenn, and De'Audra Dix scooped up the loose ball and returned it 10 yards for a touchdown.
Spotting the defending Grey Cup champions an easy and early lead is never a good idea, and many a team would be rattled in that moment. But Hamilton kept their heads and responded immediately, with a precise, collected and efficient 76-yard touchdown drive that evened the game, and evened their keel.
"That to me was the turning point," Hamilton coach Marcel Bellefeuille said. "Everyone was very calm and mature about it."
But there were also a couple of others. In the closing moments of the first half, with the Tiger-Cats up 27-13, running back Avon Cobourne (who had a big day, rushing for 102 yards against his former team) fumbled, and the Alouettes recovered. With just under a minute to go before the break, they were first and goal at the Hamilton one.
Three times, they were stopped.
Then on Hamilton's opening drive of the third quarter, quarterback Glenn, who had been enjoying a fine afternoon, went down temporarily with an apparent wrist injury, and a crisis of confidence might have ensued. Instead, Quinton Porter, his backup, stepped in, and completed a touchdown drive which was effectively the back breaker, scoring on a 20-yard quarterback draw.
Good teams do things like that. Teams that are used to winning, teams that have been through enough ups and downs and survived to tell the tale can resist getting too high or too low.
That would be the calling card of the Alouettes of the past decade, cool customers, consummate pros, unflappable winners. That's been a big part of what separated them from their East competition during a period of unprecedented dominance.
Maybe now, for the first time in a long time, they have company.