The Bad Guy

While teaching the other day, I had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of the more dangerous yells on the mountain is "BOARD!", meaning someone has lost their snowboard and it's currently heading down the mountain. While fairly easy to avoid, the free board can pick up speed rather quickly and has no control over it's direction. But you say that's what a leash is for! I agree, but many leashes aren't very strong and most boarders don't actually ride while using them (it looks uncool).

In this particular case, the escaped board clipped the back of my boots while my class and I were stopped. The contact sent the board into the trees on the side and disrupted the class session. I went into the woods to retrieve the board and hold it until the owner came to reclaim it. That or I made it to the bottom with my class. Shortly thereafter came a guy running down the hill claiming the board to be his.

As an employee of the mountain I'm obligated to follow the rules and inquired the whereabouts of his leash. He claimed it was in his car, and I suggested he go get it as it was required to ride on the mountain. He asked if everyone had a leash, and I calmly pointed out that their boards have yet to go running down the hill without a rider. Like speeding on the highway, everyone does it, but the time the cop pulls you over you can't do much other than grin and take it.

His friends have now arrived and surrounded me. Each accusing me of being a corporate sell out and for being a total ass. His friends point out that they don't have a leash either, and I suggest they not tell me such things at all. What idiot actually tells the cop, "Yep sir, I'm speeding."? I pointed out I'm not the bad guy here, but each disagreed. I pointed out that by using the lift ticket they agreed to have a restraint on their snow board, and by not having the restraint (leash in this case) I am well within my rights to clipping his ticket. I explain the leash is only a $4 purchase, and the deck they're riding on costs easily $400, it makes sense to protect it. The damage done by hitting me and the trees split the front of the board making it essentially useless for the night anyways. They then threaten to beat me up, wherein negotiations are now over.

I tell my class we need to head down to the bottom quickly (thankfully the class was a black diamond session) and turn the board in, and since they're my last class for the day we'll head up again for overtime at no charge. Turning the board in at the pro shop, I explain the guy will be here for his board in a few minutes and would like to purchase a leash.

Word from the pro shop is the guy asked for my name (it is on my name tag) and went out looking for me or my car to "destroy it". The guys in the pro shop explained that the resort is on a US National Forest area, thus not using a leash can be considered a federal offense. This didn't calm the guy down any. A second explination was made a little more directly. Because he just used a credit card, we had his name and address. If anything were to go wrong, not only would we have direct knowledge of his whereabouts, we could now easily blacklist him from any of the local resorts. Regardless of the (lack of) truth to that statement, the guy quit his grumbling and left with his leash.

My question is, when in this did I become the bad guy?