Yeah, no.
This is the American Hockey League - a team shouldn't be drawing 500 people for a regular season home game under any circumstances. However, the goal here isn't to make money - the goal here is to have the players as close as possible to the NHL club. It costs $5M (roughly) to operate an AHL team for the year. The Flames (and several other NHL owner/operators of their AHL affiliate) just write off the $5M to operate the AHL team as part of the cost of doing business as an NHL franchise.
Is a Monday night home game bad scheduling? Sure. But is it the sole reason the Wranglers drew 500? No. They drew 500 because that's the Flames' design.
No one is arguing the money aspect...running an AHL team is chump change for NHL ownership.
However, the Monday night scheduling is absolutely the sole reason why the Wranglers drew 500 people.
The Wrangers played back-to-back home games against the same team. Everyone in Calgary that wanted to see the Wranglers vs Firebirds already did that 24 hours earlier at the same location on a much more convenient day and at a much more convenient time. No different than if a b-tier musician plays in the same city two consecutive nights...the second night always has a much lower draw.
If the Wranglers played a different team the previous night or played the Firebirds in Coachella the previous night, then 500 people is disgraceful, but that's not the situation here.
6200 people saw the Wranglers vs. Firebirds in Calgary over the span of two days, which is a semi-decent draw for an AHL team when you look at the bigger picture.