VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 30— It was Saturday, July 19, and Pat Quinn, the Vancouver Canucks' general manager, decided to take the initiative. The Canucks badly wanted to sign Mark Messier, so Quinn figured he would get a head start on other suitors by flying to Hilton Head Island to lobby the Messiers in person.

Quinn and another team executive, John Chapple, arrived in South Carolina the next day. Once there, they felt there was no going back.

''I named myself The Thing That Wouldn't Leave,'' Chapple said. ''My paranoia was that if we leave town, if no one's here, he's one of a kind. We looked at this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I said to John McCaw, I'll be kicking myself the rest of my life if I get on a plane now and someone swoops in and Mark goes somewhere else.''

McCaw, the Canucks' billionaire owner, would put up the money. Quinn and Chapple would lavish the attention. The Rangers would offer precious little of either. And the story of how Messier became a former Ranger, leaving a team and a city he did not want to leave, would play out over eight midsummer days on two coasts in two countries, ending on Monday when Messier announced in Vancouver that he was joining the Canucks for approximately $20 million over three years.

Time and again, in explaining his decision, Messier said the overriding reasons were that the Canucks believed in him and made him feel wanted.

That was part of the Canucks' strategy all along. Vancouver went to Messier. The Rangers never did, not even in early July when the team president, Neil Smith, was in the South anyway for a round of American Hockey League meetings. Nor had the Rangers called.

Into this void stepped the Canucks. Dissatisfied with the way the Rangers were negotiating, Doug Messier, Mark's father and agent, called Quinn and told him his son might be interested in playing for Vancouver. The Canucks were still smarting from a year ago, when they thought they were going to land Wayne Gretzky and he ended up signing with the Rangers instead. Gretzky's agent, they felt, had perhaps used the Canucks as a bargaining tool.

But with Messier, Chapple said, ''I never felt we were being used to cattle-prod the Rangers.''

The sides first met on Monday, July 21. There was a get-acquainted period that included talk about golf, fishing and hockey over dinner at a local pub. The discussions continued again Tuesday, and then, over another dinner, Chapple said, ''we started to talk more specifically about what might make sense from a compensation standpoint.''

''By Tuesday evening really, we already, in my mind, had crossed the threshold that this clearly made sense for Vancouver,'' Chapple said. ''From a deal standpoint, it could make sense. And then from there, it went into, Is this the right thing for Mark?''

That, of course, was for the Messiers to decide. Doug Messier told Quinn and Chapple that they had just about covered everything that needed to be covered. So Quinn went home on Wednesday. But Chapple stayed on, trying to persuade the Messiers to fly out to San Francisco to meet with McCaw, the cellular phone entrepreneur who is based in Seattle, on his yacht.

Chapple's persistence paid off.

The Messiers made a stop in Washington on Friday to meet with the Capitals' owner, Abe Pollin. There were other offers as well. Detroit was reportedly in the running with a three-year, $15 million bid. The Capitals apparently offered the most at $21 million for three years. But the Capitals are in the Rangers' division, and Messier simply did not want to face his former teammates at least six times a year.

And so he and his negotiating team -- his father; his brother, Paul, and his accountant, Barry Klarberg -- and the rest of the Messier clan flew out West.

The Canucks were encouraged. ''Pat said Mark wouldn't get on a plane unless he's giving this real serious consideration,'' Chapple said.

Quinn was right. Messier met McCaw for the first time on Saturday on the owner's boat, and a deal was struck that afternoon.

''It wouldn't be fair to say we had a contract,'' Chapple said. ''But we had an understanding.''

On paper. Back in New York, however, Messier's close friends were saying privately that he was still not sure about moving, that he wanted to somehow remain with the team he helped guide to the Stanley Cup in 1994, breaking a 54-year drought.

''It was clear that he was wrestling with a highly emotional situation,'' Chapple said.

So that evening Messier phoned the Rangers to give them one last chance. He wanted to know if New York's final offer was indeed for $10 million over two years, the figure the Rangers had leaked to the New York news media. Messier said that Smith's reply was one year, $4.6 million.

''And we said, 'Thank you, very much,' '' Messier said.

That is, thanks, but no thanks.

The Messiers stayed in San Francisco on Sunday, then flew to Vancouver for Monday's news conference. The signing was hailed in the Canadian news media as a victory for small-market Canadian clubs, whose influence has diminished in the modern-day National Hockey League.

The Canucks are getting a 36-year-old center with six Stanley Cup rings, a proven leader and fierce competitor. But they will pay heavily for it. Messier will earn $5 million a season (in United States money) for each of the next three seasons, plus an additional $1 million each season for promotions and marketing. The contract includes team and individual incentives that could push the total close to $20 million -- and the Canucks have team options for fourth and fifth years that could push the total value beyond $30 million.

So, Quinn was asked, did the Canucks overpay for Messier?

''That's a difficult question to answer,'' he said. ''But we believe he's the player we needed.''

And that, in the end, was the difference between the Canucks and the Rangers.

Photo: The Canucks' belief in Mark Messier, who tried on his jersey with the aid of General Manager Pat Quinn, is what led him to sign, Messier says. (Reuters)(pg. B13)