Raimo Ilmari Helminen (born 11 March 1964 in Tampere, Finland) is a Finnish former professional ice hockey player.

Helminen has himself said that he developed most of his skills when he was young and spent all his free time playing in outdoor ice rinks in Koivistonkylä, Tampere.

Helminen started his career in his native town, playing for one of oldest teams in the country, Ilves.

His first international success came in 1984 when Finland won silver in the U20 World Championship tournament in Sweden.

This attracted the attention of people scouting new talent for the professional teams in the National Hockey League in North America.

The next fall, however, the new team management sold most of their young players and Helminen ended up with the Minnesota North Stars.

His performance included 10 points in seven games and assisting two goals in Finland's surprise 3–1 victory over gold medal hopefuls Canada.

The tournament left NHL scouts wondering why this player was not playing in North America.

However, his back would not heal properly until the summer of 1992 after Malmö had won the Swedish Elitserien, the top ice hockey league in the country.

After Matikainen was fired and the new head coach, Swede Curt "Curre" Lindström took over in 1994 Helminen was re-instated to the national team.

His number originally was 14, but he had to change it to 41 when Ilves retired 14 in honour of Lasse Oksanen, a former player of the team.

Helminen recorded an assist on a goal scored by Tuomas Pihlman four seconds before the end of the game.